A 3-Step Guide to Refreshing Your Tech Stack

So you’ve done your research and built a tech stack curated to your team’s needs—but it’s suddenly not working as perfectly as it used to. 

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With the ever-changing and growing software landscape, the prospect of overhauling your tech stack can seem overwhelming. There is no one-size-fits-all solution, which only adds to the confusion and decision paralysis. 

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Over the last 12 years, we have helped one of the Big 4 consulting firms revise and refine their tech stack multiple times on a global scale. Here are a few of the pointers we’ve gathered and applied along the way. 

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Get input from key users. 

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Tech decisions are often made in a silo. Software is chosen by a specific team who might not have a clear strategy or extensive insight into what their team really needs. It’s essential to keep the key users in mind when making these decisions and gather input from them (not what you think they want). When it comes to revising or evolving your current tech stack, the people who use the software will have the most clarity around the pros and cons of each. Whether it’s in-depth interviews or surveys, information from them will help you define the main problems or gaps in your system and make more intentional solutions to address them. 

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Focus on features and be tech agnostic. 

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Now that you know the specific problems with your tech stack, what features are you looking for to solve those problems? List out and prioritize the features that would be the most useful to give you direction as you research new technologies. 

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When working with our clients, we remain tech agnostic. This means that we keep our minds open to all solutions when considering different technologies—and don’t get stuck on one possible solution just because it worked in the past or for one specific company. 

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Sometimes the best solution is reorganizing and cutting back on the amount of tech that a client uses. Maybe a client isn’t using their current software to the fullest extent. For instance, a company already uses Google for email and is looking into implementing Dropbox as a file storage system—instead of using Dropbox, it could be more efficient to use Google Drive for storing their files. Other times, we need to go out and find the right software or build something entirely new. 

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By being tech agnostic, we help our clients avoid useless tech and the need for additional revisions. 

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Implement and re-evaluate.

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Once you’ve reviewed and adjusted your tech, it’s time to evaluate. Are you still running into the same problems as before, even after the adjustments? You may need to make a few more tweaks or give your team some time to become familiar with the new software. 

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Conclusion

Your tech stack is never a ‘set it and forget it’ strategy. The world and technology change, and there is never one perfect solution. When your team outgrows your current tech stack, it might take some trial and error to find something suited to your needs, but these steps will give you a solid framework to get there.