Insights ·
What a board should ask about legacy systems
Not ‘how old is it’, but ‘who can change it, how fast, and what happens if they leave’.
Age is a poor measure of risk. Some twenty-year-old systems are well understood, well documented and changed safely every month. Some three-year-old platforms depend on one contractor and a wiki nobody updated.
Three questions tell you more than any technology audit. How long does a routine change take, from request to production? How many people could make that change? What is the rehearsed plan if the system is unavailable for a day?
If the answers are ‘months’, ‘one’ and ‘we would improvise’, the system is a board-level risk regardless of its age, and modernisation belongs on the agenda.
