Connections before new products

Before we design a new screen, we ask which systems already hold the record. Custom software should sit on that record. It should not copy it into another database that will drift by Friday.

Point of sale, accounting, dispatch, and the spreadsheet that quietly became the system of record are all candidates. The first deliverable is often a map: what stays, what should share information, and which subscription exists only because the others do not talk.

A new screen still has a place. It is for the decision the existing tools do not support, such as an approval, an exception, or the Monday report someone assembles by hand. That screen is smaller, and more used, when the data underneath is already true.

If you are paying for five products to do one job, start with the connection. The invention can wait until the connection is not enough.