Software development: Turning a car into an airplane

As a core processor owned by the credit unions it serves, our CUSO has an important mission to find out what our member-owners need and give it to them in a way that honors that owner relationship now and into the future.

If we invest too much, we hurt the CUSO’s ability to continue building new products to meet their next need. If we invest too little, either the products we already spent money on are underutilized, or worse, we have a bunch of unhappy clients.

This is particularly challenging when it comes to the design of the software tools that credit unions use for their day-to-day activities and interactions with members. There are only so many resources to go around, so every day we work to find ways to use them wisely and on the right things, at the right time. It’s more art than science.

Upgrading the original

Let’s take as an example a software component that allows for underwriting and servicing a particular kind of loan product. When it was first designed, many years ago, it was a beautiful little thing, built exactly for the needs of the time.

 

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