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A working system that cannot be changed costs two things, and only one of them has the system's name on it. What it costs to keep running is in the IT budget. What it holds back, the products not launched because a change takes a year, the pricing changes that arrive months late, and the work done by hand around it, sits in product and operations, and no ledger records what was not done. So the rebuild's estimate is compared with the IT line, found to be five years of maintenance, and argued about. That is not the comparison. This pack turns it into two annuities and a subtraction. What the system costs to keep running plus what it holds back, across the years counted and discounted, is what carrying it is worth from here. Against it: the estimate, plus the old system carried for every year of the build, plus the new system's running cost and what remains held back after. Their difference is what the new system saves a year once it is done, across the years after the build, less the estimate, so the whole question reduces to the break-even overrun, how far over its estimate the rebuild can run before carrying is cheaper, read against the one figure the company can defend: how far over the last rebuild ran. Nine sourced decisions hold the frame: two rebuilt their own foundation and held, one rebuilt fresh and lost what worked, three carried a platform the market was leaving, one carried the platform it inherited and it was the asset, one bought the replacement, and one is the vendor ending its customers' option to carry. It stops on two halts: no one has counted what the system holds back, and no one has opened the file on the last rebuild.
What is the Rewrite Strategy Pack
The Rewrite Strategy Pack is a complete decision-support kit for one question: the system works and cannot be changed, so what does rebuilding cost against carrying it? It is built around one organizing claim: what carrying the system costs has never been counted in full, and the rebuild's estimate has never been read against the company's own record of what estimates have been worth. Sixteen files carry it: the foundations, a concept deck, a scored decision wizard, the Rewrite Model blank and worked, the moves at each reading, nine sourced decisions, a fit worksheet, a roadmap template, a practitioner manual, a field checklist, and an orientation page.
The test that runs through every file
whether what carrying the system costs has been counted in full, including what it holds back, and whether the rebuild's estimate has been read against your own record of what estimates have been worth. It is the argument in the deck, it becomes the wizard’s axes, it drives the model’s inputs, and it reappears as lines on the checklist. That is what makes 16 files a product rather than 16 documents.
The model resolves to one number you can negotiate with: The break-even overrun — how far over its estimate the rebuild can run before carrying is cheaper. It ships blank and worked, and every input is a named cell rather than a figure buried inside a formula, so the number arrives with its assumptions attached rather than on its own authority.
Why the rewrite vs refactor decision turns on a number no one has
Not because anyone is hiding it. Because a working system costs two things and only one of them has the system's name on it. What it costs to keep running is in the IT budget. What it holds back, the products not launched because a change takes a year, the pricing changes that arrive months late, and the work done by hand around it, sits in product and operations, and no ledger records what was not done. So the rebuild's estimate is compared with the IT line, found to be five years of maintenance, and argued about.
The estimate has no record beside it either. It is in the business case, the outcome of the last program is in the accounts, and in most companies no one has put the two on one page since that program closed. There is no industry figure in this pack's evidence for what a software rebuild cost against its estimate, and the pack refuses to supply one; the company's own last three programs are the only overrun figure it can defend.
This pack turns that into arithmetic. What the system costs to keep running plus what it holds back, across the years counted and discounted, is what carrying it is worth. Against it: the estimate, plus the old system carried for every year of the build, plus the new system's running cost and what remains held back after. Then the whole decision reduces to one figure, how far over its estimate the rebuild can run before carrying is cheaper, read against how far over the last one ran.
What is in the Rewrite Strategy Pack
- Foundations. The framework: why a working system is not the same as a free one, the arithmetic, the four endings that actually happen, and the nine halts.
- Concept deck. Twenty-four slides for a board or an investment committee, with nine sourced decisions, three read beside, and what each does not establish.
- Decision wizard. Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions.
- Rewrite model. Eleven candidate overruns across the columns, from a quarter under the estimate to five times it, and the break-even overrun that decides it.
- Strategies and tactics. The moves at each of four readings, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next rebuild cheaper to judge.
- Case studies. Nine sourced decisions — two rebuilt and held, one rebuilt fresh and lost, three carried while the market moved, one carried and won, one bought, and one vendor that ended the option to carry.
- Fit worksheet. The single page of record: what the system costs, what it holds back, the estimate and the years, the record, and the break-even overrun.
- Roadmap template. Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line.
- Practitioner manual. Costing the system, counting what it holds back, pricing the rebuild with the years both run, opening the record, the board paper, six failure modes.
- Field checklist. The one-pager that survives outside the binder.
- About the package. What each file does and the order in which to run them.
Who the Rewrite Strategy Pack is for
A chief executive with a system that has been on the agenda every year since 2021 and decided never; a chief financial officer being asked to approve a rebuild against an estimate with no record beside it; a chief information officer who knows the IT line is the smaller half of what the system costs and cannot prove it; a chief product officer whose roadmap has been shaped for years by what one system cannot do; a board member reading an estimate that looks like five years of maintenance; a private equity operating partner underwriting a business whose core system was built by people who have retired; and the adviser who would otherwise start from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
An honest note on fit
This is a kit for running a decision, not a research report and not a forecast. Worked examples use an explicitly fictional company with numbers tuned to teach rather than to flatter. In the worked case a fictional insurer, Aldbourne, runs a policy system that costs $14.0m a year to keep running and holds back $26.0m a year, so carrying it costs $40.0m; a rebuild whose estimate is $68m over three years pays by $22.2m over ten years on the estimate and can run 32.6 percent over, does not survive the company's own last overrun of 60 percent, and can take four years and four months before carrying is cheaper. The system must hold back at least $17.9m a year for the rebuild to pay at all, and the room's figure was zero.
The framework content is the larger share of the pack and each page marks which is which. No record in the set states what a working system cost to carry a year, what it held back, or what a software rebuild cost against its estimate, so the arithmetic is analysis throughout and that family of evidence is stated as not asserted. Four further limits are stated on the page rather than worked around. The model does not forecast the overrun; that figure is your own record, and the Model tab sweeps it. It takes the estimate as spent at the start and the saving as starting only when the rebuild is done, which is the conservative reading. It does not price what a rebuild does to everything else the company was going to do while its best people are on it. And it says nothing about what the old system carries beyond its cost: the people who understand it, and the date by which they will not be there.
Questions about the Rewrite Strategy Pack
- What numbers does the model produce?
- Three distances and thirteen supporting rows, one system at a time. The break-even overrun, which is how far over its estimate the rebuild can run before carrying is cheaper, read against your own last overrun; the break-even build years, how many years the rebuild can take before carrying is cheaper; and the least the system must hold back a year for the rebuild to pay at all. Around them: what carrying it costs a year and how much of that is what it holds back, what rebuilding saves a year once it is done, the estimate in years of that saving, what carrying and rebuilding are each worth from here, the difference on the estimate and at your own last overrun, whether the rebuild survives your record, the estimate in years of profit, and what carrying it costs against revenue. The Model tab sweeps the overrun from a quarter under the estimate to five times it, and one row turns from Yes to No where carrying becomes cheaper.
- Our system works. Should we rebuild it?
- Not on the estimate alone, and not on the IT line alone, which is the whole point of the pack. In the worked case a system that costs $14m a year on the IT line costs $40m in full, because it holds back $26m a year of products, pricing, and manual work; the rebuild pays on the estimate by $22.2m and can run 32.6 percent over, and it does not survive the company's own last overrun of 60 percent, at which carrying wins by $18.6m.
- We don't know what the system holds back.
- Most companies do not, because no ledger records what was not done. It is a quarter with product and operations rather than IT, a week done roughly, and the manual sets out the four places it hides. Until it exists the rebuild is argued against the IT line, which is the smaller half of what carrying it costs.
- Does this only apply to software?
- No. It applies wherever a working system cannot be changed and a replacement has an estimate: a policy or billing system, a core banking platform, a warehouse or scheduling system, a manufacturing line, or an airframe. Two of the nine cases are an airframe and a processor rather than software. The arithmetic is the same wherever the old system is carried while the new one is built.
- Are the case studies real companies?
- Yes. Nine sourced decisions: Facebook's native rewrite, Boeing's 737 MAX, BlackBerry, Nokia, Microsoft's Zune, SAP, Apple silicon, Microsoft under Nadella, and Oracle. Each is dated, read through what was decided and what followed, and each states what its evidence does not establish. Three more are read beside: Atlassian, Microsoft's purchase of 86-DOS, and IBM's purchase of Red Hat. Oracle is a counterfactual record borrowed for its ending and labeled. The worked model, wizard, and worksheet use an explicitly fictional company, labeled as such on every file.
- Is this a subscription?
- No. One payment, one download, sixteen files, yours to keep and to use inside your organization under the license included in the pack.
- What is the Rewrite Strategy Pack?
- The Rewrite Strategy Pack is a decision-support kit for one question: The system works and cannot be changed, so what does rebuilding cost against carrying it? It contains 16 files — foundations, concept deck, decision wizard, rewrite model, strategies and tactics, case studies, fit worksheet, roadmap template, practitioner manual, field checklist, about the package — built around a single organizing test: whether what carrying the system costs has been counted in full, including what it holds back, and whether the rebuild's estimate has been read against your own record of what estimates have been worth. It is what a leadership team uses to run the decision and leave a record of what they assumed, rather than a report about the topic.
- Who is the Rewrite Strategy Pack for?
- Anyone who has to make this call and answer for it: an operator or owner facing the decision, the executive team running it, the board or investor testing the reasoning, or an adviser who would otherwise build the framework from a blank page. It is worth buying when a real decision is in front of you. It is not worth buying to read.
- What is in the Rewrite Strategy Pack?
- 16 files in Word, PDF, PowerPoint and Excel: Foundations (Word + PDF) — The framework: why a working system is not the same as a free one, the arithmetic, the four endings that actually happen, and the nine halts. Concept deck (PowerPoint + PDF) — Twenty-four slides for a board or an investment committee, with nine sourced decisions, three read beside, and what each does not establish. Decision wizard (Excel) — Eight scored questions returning the band, the weakest answer, and either of the two halt conditions. Rewrite model (Excel, blank and worked) — Eleven candidate overruns across the columns, from a quarter under the estimate to five times it, and the break-even overrun that decides it. Strategies and tactics (Word) — The moves at each of four readings, what to do when the model halts, and four ways to make the next rebuild cheaper to judge. Case studies (Word) — Nine sourced decisions — two rebuilt and held, one rebuilt fresh and lost, three carried while the market moved, one carried and won, one bought, and one vendor that ended the option to carry. Fit worksheet (Word, blank and worked) — The single page of record: what the system costs, what it holds back, the estimate and the years, the record, and the break-even overrun. Roadmap template (Word) — Five phases with gates and owners, the assumptions register, a reporting change and a periodic review line. Practitioner manual (Word + PDF) — Costing the system, counting what it holds back, pricing the rebuild with the years both run, opening the record, the board paper, six failure modes. Field checklist (PDF) — The one-pager that survives outside the binder. About the package (PDF) — What each file does and the order in which to run them.
- How is the Rewrite Strategy Pack delivered?
- As a single download of all 16 files, immediately after payment, with the same link sent by email. It can be downloaded 3 times and the link is valid for 30 days. There is nothing to install and no account to keep.