Chapter 3. Risk-Managed Modernization

First ponder, then dare.

”Helmuth von Moltke (1800 “1891)

We are prepared to take risks, but intelligent risks. The policy of being too cautious is the greatest risk of all.

”Jawaharlal Nehru,
Speech to Parliament
New Delhi, 18 February 1953

The modernization approach described in this book integrates software engineering concepts with an organized understanding of the information systems technologies that both constrain and define the solution space. The objective of this approach is effective risk management and mitigation leading to the development of a modernization plan that minimizes the risk of the modernization effort.

This chapter introduces the risk-managed modernization (RMM) approach. This chapter briefly reviews the topic of risk management, recommends the use of portfolio analysis to select candidate systems for modernization, and introduces the activities involved in risk-managed modernization. The rest of the book expands on these activities and uses the case study introduced in Chapter 2 to illustrate this approach.