Today construction crews are installing a traffic light at an intersection nearby. Just three short months ago, my car was totaled in that same intersection when another driver blasted straight through the four-way stop. I’m grateful there were no major injuries, but I loved my car. And I miss my car.

There were city rumors of improving that intersection for years. Of course I can’t help but wonder, is the traffic light going up now because of the wreck? If so, how unlucky that mine was the final straw. If not, then the light was already scheduled to be installed now, and yet still unlucky that it wasn’t up sooner and crash avoided.

Granted, I know accidents can happen at traffic lights just as easily as four-way stops or anywhere else on the road. But the exact accident that totaled my car would surely have been avoided if there was a giant traffic light directing rights of way that day.

So, watching the new light get installed got me thinking. How often do legacy IT systems feel a bit like waiting for the inevitable major collision? When managing systems feels more like bandaging systems, it’s probably time to give your migration/upgrade the green light (pun intended).

Why do you have to wait for the server to crash or experience extended periods of production downtime before you commit to upgrading and/or migrating systems onto newer, more stable environments? You want your tired system to step down when you are ready to make the change, not the other way around.

You know the upgrade is necessary, but perhaps you want to squeeze the project into the next quarter or next year’s budget. Perhaps you don’t want to take resources away from other critical projects. Maybe you aren’t certain that in-house talent will deliver a new system that is fully optimized, scalable and adheres to industry best practices.

But delaying your inevitable upgrade might cost more than you think.

Take it from the victim of a major collision, do not hesitate or delay an anticipated upgrade. Who will be the victim when your aging system fails? Customers? Employees? Management? Ultimately what will be the cost of that failure? In order to remain competitive, the hard costs to physically design, architect, develop and implement the new technology are coming no matter what. But the soft costs of low customer satisfaction, declining employee morale, and not meeting management expectations can be minimized or avoided completely when you invest swiftly and correctly. By contracting experts with a proven track record for similar projects and implementations, such as Fairway Technologies’ professionals, you can realize your goals sooner and avoid nasty collisions before they happen.

Admit it. One of the best things about starting a new job is discovering new lunch spots.

If you have ever put in four, six or even 10 years at the same company, like I have, deciding where to go for lunch can be uninspiring, at best. Of course I had my go-to standbys, budget-friendly picks and fancy schmancy good eats. But when lunch time rolled around, I dreaded making a decision, and often regretted my choice. Either I spent too much for what I got, too much grease made me lethargic the rest of the afternoon, or too light of a lunch made me ravenous by 3pm.

But now that I have a great new job in downtown La Jolla California, thoughts of lunch fill me with discovery and optimism.

I have already found some great new eateries. Yesterday’s journey brought me to Thai Pan Cuisine, which offered up a little bit of yellow curry heaven. The thinly sliced chicken, melt-in-your-mouth potato, onions and carrots were bathed in a creamy sauce so perfectly spiced that for a moment I considered the appropriateness of licking the bowl when I finished. I decided against it.

I then realized that tomorrow I may very well find another new culinary treasure.

We’ve noticed similar behavior when organizations manage and staff IT projects. Leaders select their “favorite” IT managers to lead high-profile and extra-challenging projects. Unfortunately, this often leaves other projects understaffed or without the requisite resources to see them through to completion.

Although some people may be uncomfortable outsourcing strategic IT functions, when you find the right team of experts, project completion and success is accelerated and time to value is expedited.

So, the next time you need to fill a technical gap, but not sure you should pull your “golden-boy” or “golden-girl” off their current important assignment, consider partnering with a technology services firm like Fairway Technologies that has the expertise and experience to deliver results quickly. You may discover a hidden treasure of talent.