We’ve all been there. The quarterly board meeting where “digital transformation” gets thrown around like confetti, followed by whispers of massive IT overhauls and million-dollar modernization projects. But here’s the thing—application modernization doesn’t have to be a moonshot.

Start with Business Pain, Not Technology Hype

Before you even think about containers, microservices, or whatever’s trending on Hacker News this week, ask yourself: what’s actually hurting the business?

Technology exists to serve your organization, not the other way around. Yet too often, I see teams diving headfirst into architectural rabbit holes without understanding the business problems they’re solving. Your CTO might be excited about Kubernetes, but if your real issue is time-to-market for new features, maybe the answer isn’t orchestrating a thousand containers.

Take a step back. Create a priority list of business pain points first. Late releases? Poor customer experience? High operational costs? Once you’ve got clarity on why you’re modernizing, then you can work backwards to identify which of Gartner’s 5 R’s (Retire, Retain, Rehost, Refactor, Rearchitect) makes sense for each application.

The Power of Incremental Change

Here’s a scenario I encounter often: your team is drowning in slow release cycles. You’re stuck on traditional virtualization, wrestling with Red Hat package management, and waiting weeks for infrastructure changes. Time-to-market is killing your competitive edge, but internal IT has zero budget for major overhauls.

Your first instinct? “We need Kubernetes!” But then you Google it and… death by complexity. YAML files everywhere, networking concepts that require a PhD, and enough moving parts to make a Swiss watch jealous.

Stop. Breathe. Start small.

A Real-World Example: The Podman Experiment

Instead of boiling the ocean, try this: request that internal IT install Podman on a single development machine with SELinux-based isolation enabled. That’s it. One change. One approval ticket.

This seemingly tiny shift unlocks something powerful—the ability to containerize your applications without the orchestration complexity. Suddenly, you can update dependencies faster, test in consistent environments, and iterate without waiting for infrastructure teams to provision new VMs.

Yes, you’ll need to learn containerization basics, but that’s a day’s worth of learning, not months. Compare that to the Kubernetes learning curve (which can be omitted totally with Multistax /ad), and the ROI becomes obvious.

The Art of Failing Fast, Smartly

The essence isn’t just to “start small”—it’s to start smart. Each incremental change should deliver measurable business value while building toward your larger modernization vision. That Podman installation? It’s not just about containers; it’s about proving that modern development practices can coexist with existing infrastructure.

Once you’ve demonstrated value, the next conversation with leadership changes. Instead of asking for a complete platform overhaul, you’re showing concrete improvements in deployment speed, consistency, and developer productivity.

The Long Game

Application modernization is a journey, not a destination. By anchoring every technical decision to business outcomes and embracing incremental progress, you transform what could be a risky, expensive project into a series of manageable, valuable improvements.

Your future self (and your budget) will thank you.