Technology Injection is bad!

You must of heard of Anti-patterns or practices which cause more problems in any Information Technology. Well here is one that I see in my current employment and I call it Technology Injection is bad. At my current employer, an average software development project has a duration of two to five years. The common problem with this approach is that new technologies are introduced or injected in the middle of the project cycle to address certain requirements. Is this a good approach? No! Since the new technologies are not researched well and they usually cause more headache since it also introduces new infrastructure, new skill sets associated with the technology, and it has a lasting impact on the project and eventually on the system.

Then the question comes up, "How do we address the problem of Technology Injection?"

The answer is that the system has be well architected which promotes loose coupling, well defined functional requirements, and not deviating from non-functional capabilities. Each architecture should be flexible enough for change but change would be done in a phased approach. If the architecture is not flexible then be sure to have those big yellow stickers which say in menacing black print, "LEGACY SYSTEM", since you might need to use them in five to six years. Like any IT approach, research and development (R&D) and thorough technology analysis need to be done to identify which technologies can be safely injected into the system.