The customer wants a new site. For requirements, they refer us to the old site. "Just give us what our existing site does, but with a new theme and on the latest Concrete" they say. 

All we know about requirements is worked out backwards from the old site. Without understanding the background, that leaves us vulnerable to over-focusing on exact replication, warts and all, without even realising where the warts are. By taking time to investigate, we would get to understand how the business operates and provide a system that facilitates the business. 

The truck

Think of it as replacing a 70-year old (1950s) pickup truck - web sites age at least 10x faster than trucks. It just about gets through a 20-mile round trip commute every day, one hour each way, breaking down once per month and isn't used for anything else.

No-one at the workshop has any experience of it. They just change the engine oil once per year, but never adjust the ignition timing. The customer wants us to create a new truck by taking apart the old truck, machining replacements for all the individual parts, then assembling a shiny new replica ... of a 70 year old truck.

Digging deeper, we find every light and electric accessory fitted or repaired over the last 70 years has its own wiring because no-one could work out the old wiring. No one remembers the last time the aircon worked. The passenger side window is stuck open.

Taking advantage of the opportunity to update, we could fit a new gas engine and wheels because these are the parts that give most trouble. Its a bit of a kludge as nothing new is really compatible with the 70-year old chassis, so there would be a lot of messing about to get it fitted. There is still a 70 year old transmission joining it all together. It still runs on premium gasoline. They get to keep all the rust.

It has a tow hitch that has never been used. There is a generator in the back to run a CRT television for the kids. Finding dog hair on the seat, we guess that was where the dog used to ride. But no-one has thought to tell us they no longer have a dog, the kids have flown the nest and they never used the load bed for anything else.

Maps and candy wrappers

The glove box is full of well-worn maps. Some are hidden beneath candy wrappers. Some have notes in coloured marker. They tell us this is where the kids school friends lived. We could build a new custom body to fit on their existing well-worn chassis and drive system with a new glove box to house the collection of maps and candy wrappers.

If we went back to first principles, the recommendation could be a new battery-electric town car, leaving out the tow hitch and adding a GPS instead of the paper maps in the glove box. But there is no way through reverse engineering a 70 year old truck we could derive the existence of electric drive systems or GPS.

Phased replacement

The customer wants to replace the truck in stages. They have heard that is a safer approach. Could we get to an electric car by replacing the parts of the old truck piecemeal? Would they rather run the old truck with new wheels, or the new car with old wheels?

They could keep the old paper maps, or we could update them with this year's paper maps, or they could take the GPS option. But do they need any of these? Perhaps without the maps the glove box could be smaller. Do they need the glove box of the new car pre-filled with new candy wrappers or would they prefer to keep the old candy wrappers? Or perhaps they have something else to store there. Now the kids have flown the nest there is no steady supply of new candy wrappers and they don't need a TV or generator. 

Many of the parts do not have an equivalent. “But our old truck has a carburetor. The carburetor is essential to the running on the truck.” the owner remarks. Even a gas engine update would have fuel injection, let alone an electric drive system. We could fit a carburetor to no functional purpose. When we point out they could have an electric car, they suggest we could at least reuse the old trucks's 12v lead-acid battery - it was only replaced 18 months ago.

Back to basics

Or we could step back from reverse engineering the old truck and take the time to understand what the business requirements really are.