Effect of managerial dimensions on reengineering process of legacy software systems

The goal of reengineering is to increase functionality and quality of legacy system through fundamental rethinking and radical redesigning of that system. Most of the reengineering projects concentrate on functional aspects of reengineering; however managerial aspects play an important role for the successful reengineering of a legacy system. A broad range of managerial issues such as current market strategy, product competition, as well as organizational financial and operational constraints must be addressed to understand and model successful reengineering process. Overall success of reengineering effort requires considering these managerial issues for the identification of managerial risk components and relative affecting measures. In this paper we analyze and measure managerial dimensions of legacy system. To consider existing business environment and organizational economic strategy for the reengineering of legacy system we identify and analyze various risk components related to managerial dimensions of legacy software system. Business and economic issues involved in reengineering process of legacy system have been addressed. This paper focuses on those managerial issues which present challenges for reengineering of legacy software system including: effectiveness of competitive product analysis plan, financial support for the evolution task, affecting market factors, development process and effect of competitive product on cost & quality of target system. Mechanisms for measuring various risk components of business and economic aspects of legacy system have been outlined. Identification and development of various metrics and important measures to measure effect of individual risk component is also addressed.