“That's the way things come clear. All of a sudden. And then you realize how obvious they've been all along."
— Madeleine L'Engle

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If you’re reading this, you’re probably curious and thoughtful. You might ask, what the heck is wrong with modernization? How can 79% of application modernization projects fail? 74% of mainframe modernization efforts? 70% of “digital transformation” projects?

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What’s off? The approach or the objective? Yes.

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We’ve written about approaches before. How it’s important to focus on instilling confidence by reducing risk and disruption—and how code-based or big-bang methods do neither. So, what’s the objective? It depends.

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Triage modernization is crisis-driven and reactive. It’s when the end of life announcement is for realz this time. It’s when Taylor Swift crashes your ticketing website. It’s when a security breach disrupts operations—and hits the wallet. The objective of triage modernization is to stop the pain.

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Transitional modernization is goal-oriented, well-meaning, and focused on narrow objectives, like “lift and shift this workload into the cloud”. Ticking check-boxes helps meet KPIs, declare victory, boost careers.

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But, as David Linthicum observed, “Most workloads running on the cloud are unmodernized, and although they function, they are underoptimized. In many instances, they are sold to leadership as future projects where the application modernization would occur. Most of this just turned into technical debt, which means kicking the can down the road while paying for the road.”

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True modernization leads to a state in which the organization can do whatever it needs to do with minimal friction. Fluid IT-business collaboration—and no incentive for shadow IT. Manageable backlogs, happy programmers. Bliss.

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True modernization is when software, what Frederick Brooks calls “pure thought-stuff, infinitely malleable” genuinely supercharges the ability of organizations to experiment, innovate, adapt easily and safely.

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“All successful software gets changed. Two processes are at work. As a software product is found to be useful, people try it in new cases at the edge of, or beyond, the original domain. The pressures for extended function come chiefly from users who like the basic function and invent new uses for it.”

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Isn’t that wonderful? Software changes to benefit the organization.

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True modernization has been risky and fraught. It requires visionary leaders, boatloads of political capital, executives who think beyond the quarter, and thoughtful boards that understand technology. And as long as there’s a steady drumbeat of crises, it’s hard to go on beyond triage modernization, even as each fix, like a wrapper of APIs around a VAX system emulated on the cloud (we see you, Ticketmaster), ultimately compounds the problem.

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We're changing the risk-reward equation. We’re helping organizations get to a state of true, continuous modernization with minimum disruption or risk to the people who want to do what’s right, what works.

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Welcome to the tribe.

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News and Views

As if it weren’t hard enough already, trust in IT is eroding. The report exhorts tech leaders to “be part mastermind, part maestro” and orchestrate tech strategy “across data, security, operations, and infrastructure, teaming with business leaders — speaking their language, not tech jargon — to understand needs, imagine possibilities, identify risks, and coordinate investments."

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The Economist celebrates Excel’s 40th birthday, and there’s no sign of dethroning yet. (Subscription required.) Would it be impolite to note that some of the legacy systems we see still rely on Excel?

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You might have heard us mentioned in a recent All-In Podcast episode. The besties always give us a lot of food for thought.

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Our CCO, Edward Hieatt, spoke with the good folks at The Cloudcast in their latest episode on legacy modernization.

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From the Orchard

Episode #3 of our podcast, On a Limb, features Peter Donald of Arena Advisory Group, former FBI spokesperson and NYPD communications chief. Tune in with us — or have a listen on Spotify, Apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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Recently, we hosted a dinner for senior IT leaders in the banking sector in New York, facilitated by Leda Glyptis. Key points here.

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Joe Militello joined us as Chief People Officer at Mechanical Orchard. Joe’s appointment will help foster a culture that puts people—our team and our customers—first.

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On December 10th, find us at Evanta's Houston CIO Executive Summit. Edward Hieatt will be there to talk about AI, modernization risk equations, and building confidence through tangible progress. Attendance is by invitation only: apply here or send a direct email to the Evanta community programs manager.

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Curious to learn more? Say hello@mechanical-orchard.com.

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Issue first published on October 24th, 2024.

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