A secret to application modernization? Bring product and technology teams together

The gap between product and technology teams is real. On the one hand, you have ambitious product teams eager to serve digital customers and enhance experiences. They want features, upgrades, and swift development.

On the other hand, you have technology teams grappling with difficult challenges. They’re dealing with outdated legacy systems, technical debt, and rarely scalable architecture to run day-to-day operations, let alone turbocharge transformation.

Often, the problems pile up and leaders don’t know how to begin addressing them or lack the resources and bandwidth to do so. While neither team intentionally hurts the other, both can take negative stances toward each other. The product team feels that the technology team is too slow and the technology team feels that the product team’s expectations are unrealistic.

Instead of innovation and modernization, precious time, effort, and resources are spent on managing expectations and stakeholders. This is not ideal. At a time when enterprises are modernizing IT and turning to AI to satisfy customers and gain a competitive advantage, you don’t want yours to fall behind.

Modernizing existing customer-facing digital products is among the major trending initiatives organizations are focused on this year, according to 36% of those surveyed in an original research report by Modus Create.

With new AI offerings from both startups and established competitors crowding the market, it is becoming nearly impossible for organizations to maintain market share with legacy applications.

If you weren’t already thinking about modernizing your applications, now is the time to act.

A cutting-edge UX

Not only are customers becoming increasingly aware of and drawn to products that have the latest technologies and capabilities, but their expectations of a best-in-class UX across channels are growing exponentially.

Improving the user experience is one good reason for organizations to modernize their applications. This is because user sensibilities and expectations evolve rapidly, and what might have been considered intuitive UX even three years ago looks dated today.

AI-powered apps deliver personal, intuitive, and accessible user experiences, helping to increase customer engagement and brand loyalty.

Future-proofing your IT

In 2023 alone, more than 2,500 apps were launched with “chatbot” in their description. The AI surge is here to stay.

Product teams are no longer in the wait-and-watch mode, but in an adapt-and-thrive mode, making quick decisions to deliver seamless customer experiences. Application modernization gives enterprises the ability to scale business volumes.

Unlike legacy monolithic architecture, modernized applications can integrate easily with new technologies, further expanding their capabilities and making them fit for the future.

Modus Create’s survey on product development reveals that 69% of organizations have implemented or overhauled a customer-facing product or application in the last two years as they move to modernize their offerings.

You’ve probably already decided to invest in application modernization, but are you confident you’re getting the full bang for your buck?

One way to achieve greater success is by bridging the gap between product and technology teams.

How to bring product and technology teams together

According to Gartner, collaborative and cross-functional fusion teams that bring together people with diverse digital talents and skills are 5.4 times more likely to have high digital judgment. You should make it a business priority to ensure all teams are on the same page, driving toward a common goal. Here are a few best practices you can follow.

Make empathy attractive

When product and technology teams are considerate toward each other’s challenges, a sense of community sets in. They are no longer struggling in their islands, but working together to find solutions.

For example, if you want to enhance the customer experience, UX designers must have the full confidence and trust of the engineering teams. This practice leads to the development of products that are not just attractive, but also effective.

It’s crucial to establish an environment where information flows freely among teams, different opinions are respected, and each idea is valued and worth hearing.

Invest in your people

Here’s an eye-opening statistic: 90% of product development decision-makers agree that finding and hiring the right talent is a major challenge.

Implementing initiatives like application modernization hinges on hiring and retaining skilled engineers. It’s hard to hire engineers for obsolete frameworks. It’s even harder to retain skilled engineers if they don’t get an opportunity to explore new technologies.

Great developers are artists, and exploring new technologies helps with their overall job satisfaction.

To keep up with the rapid pace of digital transformation, your workforce must have the right skills and competencies to scale your enterprise. It’s important to incentivize goals, encourage cross-skilling, and foster a culture of learning and curiosity.

Promote collaboration

Just as important as hiring the right engineers is including them in the planning process as early as possible. Rifts are caused when product teams set a timeline for epics and features without getting input from engineering to understand the dependencies or technical constraints that should be considered.

Effective collaboration means including engineering in estimating and planning a roadmap. This will result in greater project success.

Align goals and create a feedback loop

A simple yet mighty solution to product and technology team misalignment is ensuring that they are on the same page from the beginning. Letting teams understand the purpose behind an initiative and how it plays into the organization’s larger business strategy creates more connectivity.

Educating teams about the impact of goals and their participation in certain projects helps create more buy-in as well.

Bringing product and technology teams together can be transformative as you seek to modernize applications and take advantage of AI. One powerful step that is too often overlooked is fostering open communication between teams to clarify objectives and streamline processes, leading to long-lasting digital maturity.

Need to modernize your legacy systems without disrupting your teams? Discover our approach to legacy system modernization.