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Mullen Family Dentistry’s Old Infrastructure

IBM defines technical debt as “the future costs associated with relying on shortcuts or suboptimal decisions.” It’s usually applied to software development, but the term still applies to this small office. Mullen Family Dentistry is my parent’s local business in Northern California, while they’re great at working on teeth, they need my help on the technological side. I believe this accurately represents a lot of small businesses out there when it comes to tech: don’t break what was there before and get it working. The problem with this methodology is that it becomes very hard to diagnose problems, and even more difficult to untangle when it’s finally time to do it right.

This situation is what I was presented with in September of 2026: layers of cables, devices, and no overall plan for how the infrastructure should be laid out. I could clearly see each “generation” of adding on new equipment to what was there without removing or reworking what existed before. It was very obvious that they were due for an overhaul.

Devising and Executing The Plan

W.I.P. Check back later for details

Results and Lessons

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