CO-EVOLUTION & AN ENABLING INFRASTRUCTURE : A SOLUTION TO LEGACY ?

A major international financial institution has a substantial IT legacy systems problem. Its European operation based in the UK has resolved many of the issues and this chapter will explore the conditions, which have enabled this development to take place. It will argue that 'legacy' is not solely a technical issue, and the 'solution' in this case would not have been possible if many other organisational and cultural conditions were not in place. It will argue that the enabling organisational infrastructure was such, that it enabled the emergence of new ways of working, not typical between the business and IS domains and that it encouraged co-evolution between the two domains. By providing support and direction it was able to allow self-organisation in the development of new relationships. By exploring its space of possibilities the project also brought together the necessary technical skills, tools and approaches which facilitated the technical solutions. The exogenous pressure of the Euro created the need for internal unification, but that pressure alone would not have been sufficient to address the multiple problem space and to overcome deep cultural differences. Despite its success, the existing management approach of moving managers every 2-3 years, is threatening the stability and sustainability of the project in the future. Furthermore, the head-office in the USA was unaware of the European development. The case will be used by the USA office to learn about a natural experiment and the special conditions it created to enable co-evolution and to resolve the multi-faceted problem of legacy.