The most successful IBM i transformations share a counterintuitive secret: they prioritize people over platforms.
After countless conversations with organizations navigating their futurization journeys, one pattern emerges consistently lasting momentum comes from teams that feel valued, not just updated.
The Quiet Moments Tell the Real Story
Real insights rarely emerge in scheduled quarterly reviews. They surface in coffee break conversations, in the pause before someone answers a difficult question, in the relief you hear when someone realizes their decades of RPG expertise still matters in a cloud-first world.
These moments reveal a fundamental truth about transformation: when teams feel seen and systems feel familiar, even as they evolve, everything changes.
Why Traditional Modernization Falls Short
Organizations across industries are discovering that updating technology isn’t enough. Simply replacing green screens or migrating COBOL programs misses the deeper opportunity.
What they need isn’t modernization, it’s futurization.
The distinction matters:
- Modernization updates your technology stack
- Futurization transforms your organization’s capability to continuously evolve
The organizations creating lasting change aren’t necessarily those with the biggest budgets or most aggressive timelines. They’re the ones who unlock something far more powerful; internal champions who believe in the journey because they see themselves in the destination.
The Three Pillars of Sustainable Transformation
1. Start with Respect, Not Replacement
Before touching a single line of RPG code, successful organizations acknowledge an important reality, those legacy applications represent decades of refined business logic and institutional knowledge. Your IBM i systems aren’t technical debt, they’re technical assets that need evolution, not extinction.
When you honor that foundation instead of dismissing it as “outdated,” something remarkable happens. Your most experienced developers lean in rather than pull back. They become transformation advocates instead of silent skeptics.
2. Embrace Modularity Over Monumentality
Big-bang transformations create big-bang disruptions. They demand massive resource commitments, introduce overwhelming risk, and often collapse under their own weight before delivering value. The organizations achieving real success take a fundamentally different approach.
The most successful IBM i transformations happen in digestible pieces. Consider these real-world starting points:
- One team began by futurizing just their customer-facing screens using Profound UI, a cornerstone of Profound AppDev, keeping all backend logic intact
- Another started with a single database table, gradually expanding their approach
- A third chose to transform their most-used RPG program first, creating immediate visible impact
These aren’t compromises or half-measures. They’re strategic choices that generate early wins, build confidence, and create momentum that compounds over time.
3. Prioritize Coexistence Over Cut-Over
This principle transforms both technical architecture and team dynamics. Instead of forcing an either/or choice between green screens and modern interfaces, or between RPG and newer languages, create environments where both can thrive together.
With coexistence technology, developers can:
- Work in familiar 5250 interfaces while gradually adopting visual designers
- Access existing RPG programs through modern APIs without rewriting
- Deploy improved interfaces module by module, without waiting for complete system overhauls
The Technical Foundation That Makes People-First Transformation Possible
Here’s where strategy meets execution. Many organizations understand the value of honoring their people and preserving their investments, but they struggle with the how. They’re told they must choose between maintaining stability and pursuing innovation. Between keeping their teams productive and transforming their technology.
This is a false choice. Modern coexistence technology eliminates these trade-offs entirely.
Coexistence isn’t just philosophy; it’s practical technology that enables incremental transformation:
- Automatic Integration: Proxy program objects and microservices automatically connect old and new components. No manual patches. No integration nightmares.
- Incremental Deployment: Teams can deploy transformed interfaces before the entire project completes, seeing and feeling progress in real-time.
- Risk Mitigation: Transform as little as one screen or program at a time. Test thoroughly. Roll back if needed. Move forward with confidence.
- Productivity Preservation: Keep your teams productive while they adapt. No one has to stop working while transformation happens around them.
Why Momentum Matters More Than Speed
Futurization isn’t a sprint. It’s building a movement inside your organization.
Sustainable momentum beats explosive speed every time. When you move at the pace of trust, fast enough to show progress, measured enough to bring everyone along, you build something more valuable than new technology. You build organizational capability that compounds.
This approach transforms the emotional landscape of change:
- Anxiety becomes curiosity when people know their expertise remains valuable
- Resistance becomes exploration when familiar systems remain accessible during learning curves
- Skepticism becomes advocacy when early wins demonstrate tangible benefits
Measuring Success Differently
What you measure shapes what you achieve. When organizations track only technical metrics, screens converted, programs migrated, systems replaced, they optimize for activity rather than impact.
They count what’s easy to count, not what actually counts.
The most successful futurization initiatives measure transformation through a completely different lens.
Traditional metrics focus on:
- Lines of code migrated
- Screens modernized
- Systems replaced
Futurization metrics focus on:
- Teams empowered
- Expertise preserved and enhanced
- Business capability expanded
- Innovation velocity increased
The difference? Traditional metrics measure what you’ve changed. Futurization metrics measure what you’ve enabled.
The Path Forward for Your Organization
Every IBM i transformation story reinforces the same truth: organizations that respect their people and their existing investments deliver superior results. Not just in technical specifications or project timelines, but in the energy and engagement of their teams.
When systems feel familiar even as they evolve, when expertise is valued even as it expands, when progress is measured in capability gained rather than just technology replaced, that’s when transformation becomes more than a project. It becomes a competitive advantage that continuously compounds.
Getting Started with Coexistence
The beauty of the coexistence approach is its flexibility. You can:
- Start small: Choose one screen, one program, or one workflow
- Prove value quickly: Deploy improvements in weeks, not years
- Build on success: Let early wins guide and accelerate next steps
- Preserve productivity: Keep operations running while transformation happens
This isn’t just better technology strategy – it’s better people strategy.
And in the world of IBM i transformation, people strategy is business strategy.
Next Steps
Your IBM i systems have powered your business for decades. The expertise of your teams has built and refined these systems into competitive advantages. The future of your technology doesn’t have to come at the expense of either.
Ready to explore how futurization can honor your investments while accelerating your evolution? Let’s discuss how our unmatched coexistence technology can help your organization build momentum that lasts. Reach out to our team at Futurization@ProfoundLogic.com today.