Entry engagement — start here
Modernization and Architecture Assessment
Know exactly what to fix first, and what to leave alone.
- Duration
- 2–3 weeks
- Format
- Remote, with codebase and environment access
- Fee
- Fixed fee, from $9,500
If you go on to a build engagement with us, this fee is credited to it in full — so a confident “yes” to the work costs you nothing extra for the discovery.
This is for you if
- An application that still runs the business has become slow, risky or expensive to change.
- You are being asked to approve a rewrite and want an independent read before you do.
- You suspect the real problem is architecture or delivery process, not the people.
This is not for you if
- You want a report that justifies a decision already made.
- Nobody can give us access to the code, the environments or the people who work on it.
The problem it solves
Legacy is rarely one problem. It is usually an accumulation: an architecture that grew without standards, tests that were never written, a deployment nobody wants to touch on a Friday, and two people who understand the whole thing.
The instinct is to rewrite. Rewrites usually cost more than predicted, take longer than promised, and reproduce the original problems in a newer framework. The alternative is to find the specific things that make change expensive, and fix those first.
How it runs
What we actually do
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Week 1 — Access and orientation
Codebase review, environment and deployment walkthrough, and interviews with the people who maintain the system day to day.
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Week 2 — Analysis
Architecture and dependency mapping, quality and test-coverage observations, security and operational risk, delivery-process review.
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Week 2–3 — Roadmap
Prioritized recommendations sequenced by risk reduction per unit of effort, with build, refactor, replace or retain called for each component.
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Readout
A working session with your team and your executives — two audiences, one honest story, no separate 'management version'.
Deliverables
What you receive
Documents you keep, whether or not you continue with us.
- Architecture findings with a system context and dependency diagram
- Code and maintainability observations, evidenced with specifics rather than adjectives
- Security and operational risk register
- Deployment, environment and DevOps assessment
- Delivery-process and team-practice observations
- Build, refactor, replace or retain recommendation for each significant component
- Prioritized modernization roadmap, sequenced by risk reduction
- Modernization scorecard with a benchmarked score
- An estimate for the first three items, so the roadmap is actionable
What happens afterwards
Most assessments lead to us implementing the first two or three roadmap items alongside your team — which is also the fastest way to transfer the reasoning rather than just the conclusions. Some lead to Managed Application Care instead.
Questions we are usually asked
Will you tell us to rewrite everything?
Almost certainly not. Incremental modernization is usually cheaper and dramatically less risky. When a rewrite genuinely is the right answer we will say so, and show the arithmetic.
Our team is worried this is an audit of them.
Reasonable worry, and we take it seriously. We assess the system and the process, not individuals, and we share findings with the team before the executives see them. Teams that feel judged hide the things we most need to see.
How much access do you need?
Read access to the repository, a walkthrough of the environments, and roughly four hours total with two or three engineers. We will sign an NDA first.
Can you assess something that is not .NET?
Often yes — architecture, delivery and operational practice transfer. If the specifics fall outside our competence we will tell you rather than bluff.