Field guide · the kit
The Mainframe Modernization RFP Kit
Everything procurement needs to run a serious modernization selection — the RFP skeleton, the 40 questions, the PoC scope, the business case, the board deck. No form, no email wall. Copy what you need.
PalmDigitalz Research · 15 min read · July 2026 · ungated
kit contents
01 · the rfp document skeleton
02 · the 40 questions
03 · the poc scope template
04 · the business case skeleton
05 · the board deck outline
A word on why this exists. Most modernization RFPs are written by the vendors who intend to win them — templates arrive attached to a discovery call, and the questions inside are the ones the template’s author can already answer well. This kit is the counterweight: the document skeleton, questions, and acceptance criteria a buyer would write for themselves if they had run a dozen of these selections. Everything below is selectable text on a public page. Take it.
Use it in whatever order procurement reaches for it: the skeleton if you are drafting, the questions if responses just landed, the PoC scope once a shortlist exists, the business case and the deck when the funding conversation starts. Nothing here requires talking to us first — that is the point of ungated.
Nine sections, in this order. If your draft is missing one, the gap will be filled later by the vendor — on the vendor’s terms.
§1 · background & estate profile
What you run, in numbers: platforms, languages, program and job counts, data stores, integration surface. Precise counts beat adjectives — vendors price adjectives with contingency.
§2 · objectives & non-goals
What the program must achieve, and — just as binding — what it will not attempt. An RFP without non-goals invites scope theater in every response.
§3 · scope of this rfp
Which applications, which phases, and where this procurement stops. State explicitly whether you are buying analysis, extraction, forward engineering, or all three — and that you reserve the right to stop between them.
§4 · mandatory evidence requirements
The non-negotiables: rule-level source lineage, deterministic reprocessing, in-perimeter operation, artifact ownership. Mark each pass/fail. Anything marked “desirable” will be treated as decoration.
§5 · technical response requirements
The 40 questions (kit 02), answered in writing, in order, with no substitution of marketing material for answers. Set page limits per group to force specificity.
§6 · delivery model & team
Named roles, on/off-shore mix, SME time demanded from your side, and knowledge-transfer obligations. Ask who, specifically, has done this before — and for how long they are committed.
§7 · commercial model
Pricing separated by stage (analysis, extraction, build, cutover), outcome-linked where possible, with re-pricing after rationalization built in. Effort-only pricing points the vendor’s incentives at the calendar.
§8 · evaluation criteria & weights
Publish the weights. Evidence and verifiability should outweigh brand and price — a cheap program that cannot pass audit is the most expensive thing you can buy.
§9 · timeline & logistics
Dates, Q&A windows, submission format, and the PoC gate (kit 03) as the final selection stage. The paper round shortlists; the PoC decides.
These are working questions, not gotchas. A serious vendor can answer all forty; the value is in how specific the answers are, and how quickly the specifics arrive. Score each answer 0–2: zero for marketing, one for a specific written answer, two for an answer demonstrated on artifacts — and publish that scoring rule in §8 of the RFP, so deflection is visibly priced. The groups are ordered by how early the answer matters: provenance failures poison everything downstream, while commercial terms can still be negotiated in the final round.
provenance & auditability · q-01–q-06
accuracy & verification · q-07–q-11
determinism vs probabilistic · q-12–q-16
scope & dead code · q-17–q-21
people & knowledge transfer · q-22–q-26
security & data handling · q-27–q-31
commercials & lock-in · q-32–q-36
delivery & cutover · q-37–q-40
The proof of concept is the real selection round; the paper round only decides who gets to attempt it. Make it paid — typical market investment is in the $50K–$100K range — because a vendor who will not charge for six weeks of genuine analysis is recovering the cost somewhere less visible. Six weeks is enough for one hard program; it is not enough for theater.
inputs you provide
One production program of your choosing — pick the gnarliest, not the cleanest; something in the tens of thousands of lines with real history. Its copybooks, JCL, and schedule context. Representative data profiles or masked samples. SME access capped at 2–4 hours per week. Perimeter access under your security review.
outputs you must receive
A rules inventory in which every rule carries lineage to its source paragraphs. A dead-code and duplication report for the scope, with evidence per finding. A dependency map covering calls, data flow, and job relationships. A rebuilt module with passing tests, if forward engineering is in scope. All artifacts in formats your team can open without the vendor in the room. Insist on interim artifacts weekly rather than a single week-6 reveal — drift you catch in week 2 is a conversation; drift you catch in week 6 is a verdict.
acceptance criteria — written as measurable statements
• 100% of extracted rules carry source lineage to program, section, and line span.
• Two independent pipeline runs over identical input produce identical rule inventories, demonstrated by diff in our presence.
• On a random sample of 50 extracted rules, our SMEs confirm at least 45 as correct against source.
• On a random sample of 20 dead-code findings, at least 18 withstand SME challenge.
• Zero source code egress from our perimeter, confirmed by our security team’s monitoring, not the vendor’s attestation.
• Our audit team can trace one rule of their choosing from inventory back to source, unassisted, in under 30 minutes.
the week-by-week shape
week 1 · ingest → week 2 · map → week 3 · rationalize → weeks 4–5 · extract + verify → week 6 · evidence review
what a refusal tells you
A vendor who pushes back on this scope is answering your RFP more honestly than their written response did. Refusing the determinism diff means the pipeline cannot pass it. Refusing lineage means the tooling does not produce it. Refusing your program in favor of “a representative sample we prepare” means the demo estate is doing the heavy lifting. Substituting a slide deck for the week-6 evidence review means the evidence would not survive one. Each refusal is data; collect it and move on.
A modernization business case needs exactly three numbers a CFO will interrogate. Everything else is supporting schedule.
01 · the run-rate
What staying costs per year, fully loaded: MIPS/MSU and software licensing, people, support contracts, and the risk carry — SME retirement exposure, audit findings, the growing cost of every change request. Trend it forward; the line is not flat.
02 · the exit envelope
The all-in cost to leave: analysis, rationalization, extraction, build, parallel run, and decommissioning — priced after the dead-code report, not before, or the envelope inherits a third of phantom scope.
03 · the break-even
The month in which cumulative exit spend crosses cumulative avoided run-rate. State it as a date, phased by cohort — a break-even that only works if everything cuts over at once is a big bang wearing a spreadsheet.
the risk adjustment
Multiply the benefits line by a probability of success, and say so on the slide. Take the base rate seriously — the failure patterns are documented — then show which controls move your probability away from the base rate: rules provenance, scope rationalization, phased cutover with parallel run. A business case that survives its own risk adjustment is rarer, and more fundable, than one that ignores it.
the sensitivity check
Pressure-test the three numbers before the CFO does: run-rate with and without the next licensing renewal; envelope with and without the dead-code cut; break-even at cohort velocities 25 percent slower than planned. If the case only closes under the optimistic triple, it is not a case yet — it is a hope with formatting.
For the raw inputs, start with the Exit Calculator and the cost breakdown in What an exit costs.
Ten slides, one job each. If a slide is doing two jobs, split it; if it is doing none, cut it.
a note on whose kit this is
We wrote the questions we would want to be asked. Ask them of us too — q-12 in particular, since determinism is the claim our entire engagement model stands on. If any vendor’s answers beat ours on your code, hire them; the kit will have done its job either way. Send us the forty questions whenever you are ready.
keep reading
kit 03 is a working scope · we will sign it as written