Occasionally, the circumstances of a given project may dictate that you use a “big bang” approach, where all the functionality of the planned system has to be delivered at the same time. The London Stock Exchange underwent two major transformations, one in 1986, when computerized and phone technology displaced face-to-face trading; and another one thirteen years later, when the phone technology was phased out, at least for the top 100 stocks. These two “big bangs” were successful, but both carried a built-in transition period where old and new systems coexisted.
In other cases, you may be building a brand new facility and want to use new technology, such as the computerized baggage handling at Denver International Airport in 1995. This system resulted in an unmitigated catastrophe and had to be scrapped at least temporarily.
The last temptation to adopt a “big bang” approach may be when you want to create an integrated enterprise-wide system, managing all the transactions and management data of an entire enterprise. Hardly anyone attempts this anymore after the consistently unsuccessful attempts in the early days of database management systems (around 1970) and Information Engineering (1985-1900).
In summary, rather than cede to the temptation of delivering everything at once, do your utmost to find a gradual approach, where you can learn as you go and change direction as dictated by reality.
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