In a chat with a colleague yesterday we tried to make plans for the upcoming years to determine what steps need to be taken now that will allow us the development of products that we don’t know yet.

When preparing for a future that you don’t know any details of you need to make sure that what you do next will likely support your future ideas. In other words you need to make sure that what you have now allows you to add and change things without breaking everything else. You need a maximum of flexibility.

Our core business matter is editorial content living in a database entered through a CMS.

This content is the core ingredient to all our products on the web, mobile, on tablets or in partner feeds. Realizing a new product idea will most likely be no exception. So we need to find ways that allow access to our contents from all kind of applications with no side effects to others.

You don’t have to discuss this for too long before you conclude that you need a service oriented architecture (SOA). This will allow us to develop ideas around our contents that do not affect other ideas. At least not technically.

Once you’re able to identify your core ingredients and wrap them in services you should be as flexible as necessary to do your main job.

SOA

<< Why did my conversion rate go down?

The new Financial Times Deutschland in only five sprints! >>