Parallel adoption is a method for transferring between an old (IT

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

) system to a target (IT) system in an organization. In order to reduce risk, the old and new system run simultaneously for some period of time after which, if the criteria for the new system are met, the old system is disabled. The process requires careful planning and control and a significant investment in labor hours.

Overview

This entry focuses on the generic process of parallel adoption; (real-world) examples are used for a more meaningful interpretation of the process if necessary. Moreover a process-data model is used for visualizing the process which is intended to provide a complete overview of all the steps involved in the parallel adoption, but emphasis will be laid on the unique characteristics of parallel adoption. Some common characteristics, especially defining an implementation strategy, that go for all four generic kinds of adoption are described in Adoption (software implementation)

Adoption (software implementation)

Adoption deals with the transfer between an old system to a target system in an organization. So if a company works with an old software system, it may want to use a new system which is more efficient, has more work capacity etc. So then a new system needs to be adopted, where after it can be...

.

Other kinds of adoption

Besides parallel adoption, three other generic kinds of adoption can be identified. The choice for a specific adoption method depends on the organizational characteristics; more insight on this topic will be provided below. The three other adoption methods are: