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Legacy modernisation without the big bang
7 min readMatthew Ryan
Big-bang legacy replacements have a poor track record and an even worse reputation. The good news is that modern engineering practice — combined with AI-assisted discovery — makes incremental modernisation genuinely viable for systems that used to look untouchable.
The pattern we keep returning to: reverse-engineer the behaviour you actually depend on, wrap it behind a stable interface, then replace it slice by slice. Each slice ships value, retires risk, and gives leadership a credible reason to keep funding the program.
AI accelerates the discovery and test-generation work that used to take months. It does not replace the judgement calls about what to keep, what to retire and what to redesign — that's still where senior engineers earn their keep.
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