When you need to replace a legacy system quickly, it’s tempting to set aside good project management practices and push forward recklessly. But doing so results in delays, cost overrun, and organizational chaos. Take time to understand the problem, plan and estimate the solution, and set up your project for success.

We live in a world where data is constantly being recorded. In software, determining the timing of when to use that data is critical to making the most of the information. You should take into account data freshness, the data-gathering processes and any dependencies between them, and when to distribute information.

When most people think about continuous delivery, they think of improving the build-test-deploy-operate cycle. They don’t think about how to improve the intake process. Ensuring that quality is built into the application—not tested for after the fact—is the key to achieving accelerated continuous delivery.