Like many of you growing up in the 1990s, I have fond memories of playing the classic role-playing games on the SNES, and later, the PlayStation.  Final Fantasy, Breath of Fire, and the like.  I bet many of you can still hum the level-up song from Dragon Warrior/Dragon Quest in your sleep.

A frequent theme for these titles was, about 80 percent of the way through the game, your character’s love interest ceases to be an adorable 20-pixel-high maiden, and turns into a screen-filling ball of evil spells and tumors which must be dispatched to move forward.

What does it have to do with the Internet?  A lot.

Often times, you’re the one responsible for your beloved website turning into a similar screen-filling ball of evil.

The tumors tend to come from poorly imagined scope.  What started as a dispatch system for employees grew a login for external contractors.  Then direct sales emerges.  Finance demands to be grafted in.  Within a few years, the original software is barely there beneath the addons.

Now, it’s normal for software to evolve and grow.  However, if allowed to grow randomly, you find yourself wrestling with limitations which made sense in one context, as they become unwieldly.  Perhaps, for example, your order system was product-based.  Each order has one item, one payment method, etc.  Works great until you realize people want to add a split payment.  Or two items on one order.  Soon, you’re making dozens of exceptions to keep the monster alive.

When do you draw the line?

Can you now succinctly define what you need– in terms of data storage or workflow — and does it differ largely from the decisions you made when the site began?

• Are you doing the same job multiple times to keep different parts of the site in synch?
• Have you passed on desirable enhancements to the site since they can’t fit the established layout and data structure?
• Are everyday operations done primarily as “special cases” bolted on later?
• Have you been forced to “hunt down” specialized hosting or developers to keep the site operational?  PHP 4 is dead, yet many people are tied to apps which bomb in 5 or 6.

Slaying the beast can be hard.  You have to fight your locked-in work processes.  But sometimes you can’t move on until you do.