End of support is a date somebody else chose. It arrives whether or not it appears in your plan.
The useful artefact is a register carrying the support end date against every item. An organisation holding that list can defend next year's submission in one meeting, and named lines in years two and three turn a purchase into a programme.
A refresh is judged on the things that are hard to replace: the data nobody backed up, the certificate on the old machine, the licence tied to somebody who has left. Those weigh more than the specification of the new device.
Questions Worth Taking Forward
- Which support dates fall inside the next two budget years?
- What is hard to move, and who currently knows about it?
- What does this refresh have to preserve rather than replace?
- Who holds the register once the project closes?
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