Adapts reposted this
The Silent Risk in Legacy Systems: When Knowledge Retires We often talk about technology debt, but there’s another kind of debt that doesn’t show up on balance sheets: knowledge debt. In many organizations, critical systems (often mainframes or legacy codebases) are kept alive thanks to the expertise of a handful of seasoned SMEs who have spent decades mastering them. They are the living knowledge base. These systems process billions and billions of requests daily - think of banks, government infrastructure, aviation/logistics and more. But what happens when those experts retire (how many passionate #COBOL or #FORTRAN experts do you see)? Suddenly, the younger generation of engineers - brilliant with modern stacks - are left staring at cryptic code and outdated infrastructure with no clear roadmap. The result: panic, downtime, and costly delays. This isn’t just a technology problem; it’s a knowledge transfer problem. 📝 Capturing system knowledge before it walks out the door ♾️ Creating living documentation, not static files that gather dust ⚙️ Building tools and processes that make legacy systems maintainable by anyone At Adapts, this is exactly the challenge we’re tackling - transforming code into contextual, living knowledge that teams can rely on long after the original authors have moved on. Curious - how is your team addressing this knowledge gap for critical/legacy systems? #KnowledgeTransfer #KnowledgeDebt #LegacySystems #EngineeringExcellence #Code2Wiki #SoftwareMaintenance