ROI Case File No.459 'The New System with the Old Design'
The New System with the Old Design
Chapter 1: A Brand New System Nobody Wants to Use
"We switched to a new system, but nobody wants to use it."
Koji Matsuda, IT Division Head at Globex Corporation, sat across from us with a sour expression, a freshly completed core system replacement report on the table in front of him. On budget, on schedule — or so it had seemed.
"We migrated a twenty-year-old core system to a new Zoho-based platform. The project ran fourteen months. The vendor billing came in within expectations. But two weeks into go-live, complaints began rising from the floor."
"What kinds of complaints?" I asked.
"The screen navigation for moving from order receipt to progress tracking is too complicated. A task that took three clicks in the old system now takes seven in the new one. Customer information and project information are in separate modules — you have to toggle between two screens to check the status of a single job. We transposed the old system's design logic directly into Zoho, so we're not leveraging Zoho's actual capabilities — the vendor told us as much."
"Why was the old system's design carried over?" Claude asked.
Matsuda went quiet. "We wanted to minimize migration cost and resistance on the floor. We judged that keeping familiar operating flows would mean a smoother transition. In the end, we transcribed the old inefficiencies directly into the new system."
"You conflated making people comfortable with making things work well," Gemini said quietly.
Matsuda nodded. "Exactly. Tell me what can be improved from here."
Chapter 2: RICE Illuminates the Priorities
"This case calls for RICE."
Claude wrote four letters on the whiteboard: R · I · C · E.
"RICE stands for Reach, Impact, Confidence, and Effort — four axes for evaluating improvement initiatives," I explained. "When making changes to a system immediately post-go-live, 'fix everything' is not realistic in terms of budget or time. To determine what to fix first, RICE sharpens the question."
"First, list all the complaints the floor has raised," I asked of Matsuda.
A week later, Matsuda returned with a list of twenty-seven improvement requests.
"Let's analyze this list in Strategic ROI Intelligence," Gemini proposed. "Compare against improvement case data from other companies of similar scale using Zoho, and pull reference priority indicators."
The tool returned its analysis. Nine of the twenty-seven items matched high-frequency issues reported at other companies. The RICE score calculation was focused on those nine.
[Calculating RICE Scores]
"The highest-scoring item," Gemini read aloud, "is the integration of the order progress dashboard. R (entire company) × I (high) × C (0.8) ÷ E (medium) — top score."
"Currently, order information is in the sales module, progress information is in the project management module, and billing information is in accounting," Claude explained. "Creating a single dashboard where all of that can be viewed in one screen dramatically reduces the time needed to check the status of any one project. Zoho has multi-module data integration dashboard functionality built in. It wasn't in the old system — it simply hadn't been used."
"In other words," Matsuda said, the realization landing, "by following the old system, Zoho's features weren't being used. Improvement doesn't mean adding features. It starts with using features that already exist."
"Second in the RICE scoring," Gemini continued, "is improving the link between staff and project information. Currently, manual ID entry is required for association. Zoho's standard functionality supports automatic linking — a configuration change is all that's needed. The smallest Effort, the highest Confidence in the ranking."
"Third," Claude said, "is simplifying screen navigation. Designing three-click workflows is achievable via Zoho's custom view feature, but floor-level interviews are required, making Effort larger than the top two."
[A Three-Phase Improvement Plan]
"Proceed with improvements in RICE score order," I proposed.
"Week one — dashboard integration. Configuration work only. Largest Reach of any item. Immediate impact. Demonstrating this first creates trust in the improvement process."
"Week two — automatic staff-project linking. Configuration change only. Second highest in complaint volume."
"Week three onward — screen navigation improvements, based on floor interviews. Some customization will be required; proceed in discussion with the vendor."
Matsuda folded his arms. "The top two RICE items can be addressed with configuration changes only. Essentially no additional cost."
"That's the power of RICE," I replied. "Evaluating improvement initiatives across four axes surfaces the ones with the highest impact at the lowest cost. You don't need to spend again after pouring significant budget into a replacement. The first move is learning to use what you already have."
Chapter 3: Old Maps and New Terrain
Matsuda photographed the RICE score table on the whiteboard and said:
"If we had used this framework at the design stage of the replacement, I think it would have been different."
"For next time," Claude said, "remember this. A system migration is not the task of copying old system functions into a new system. It is the task of designing how to achieve the old system's purpose using the new system's capabilities. The three-click process being optimal in the old system — that was only true within the constraints of the old system. The new system has different constraints and different possibilities. Walk new terrain with an old map, and you get lost."
"As a lesson from this failure," I added, "in the next replacement, use RICE to prioritize 'what we want to achieve in the new system' before migration begins. 'Familiarity' for the floor and 'improvement' for the organization are different questions. You can't satisfy both simultaneously. Deciding which one takes priority — making that call at the start — is what matters."
Three months later, a report arrived from Matsuda.
After the week-one dashboard integration, floor complaints dropped sharply. Multiple departments said, "Everything's visible in one screen." After the week-two automatic linking configuration, inquiry volume from data entry errors dropped from a weekly average of four to under one.
Twenty-seven improvement requests, addressed in RICE priority order: nineteen resolved in three months. The remaining eight were folded into Phase Two planning.
Matsuda's report read: "The failure of following the old system was a design problem. But that failure became the catalyst for starting to use Zoho's features the way they were meant to be used. The real results of a replacement don't appear on go-live day. I've realized they start appearing three months later."
The day the new system acquired a new design.
"A system replacement is not the task of moving old problems into a new container. It is the task of designing how to use the possibilities the new container holds. What RICE asks is not what to fix first, but what generates the most value at the lowest effort. If you can raise this question in the middle of post-go-live confusion, the new system is not redesigned — it is gradually learned. Old maps are no use in new terrain."
Related Files
Tools Used
- Strategic ROI Intelligence — Comparative analysis against peer company improvement cases and priority reference metrics
