Software systems in-house integration: Architecture, process practices, and strategy selection

As organizations merge or collaborate closely, an important question is how their existing software assets should be handled. If these previously separate organizations are in the same business domain – they might even have been competitors – it is likely that they have developed similar software systems. To rationalize, these existing software assets should be integrated, in the sense that similar features should be implemented only once. The integration can be achieved in different ways. Success of it involves properly managing challenges such as making as well founded decisions as early as possible, maintaining commitment within the organization, managing the complexities of distributed teams, and synchronizing the integration efforts with concurrent evolution of the existing systems.This paper presents a multiple case study involving nine cases of such in-house integration processes. Based both on positive and negative experiences of the cases, we pinpoint crucial issues to consider early in the process, and suggest a number of process practices.