Delivered with two developers, against an initial plan of 52 weeks and four developers.
Selected case studies
Four projects.
Do it Best · Mainframe modernization
Four projects.
One mission: turn off the mainframe.
to
Do it Best set out to retire mainframe processes across core business systems. Matthew Hunt led the Principled Software Solutions effort, coordinating four subcontracted developers and connecting software delivery with Do it Best's business and technical teams.
The result: reliable modernized services, high stakeholder satisfaction, and delivery before the initiative's October 2026 deadline.
Delivered with one developer, against an initial estimate of four developers.
Projects 2 and 3 had no change orders. Project 1 had one, with no impact on cost or schedule.
From origin to outcome
Modernize with three teams.
Keep the business moving.
Across four related projects, Matthew connected Do it Best's business and technical teams with Counterpart's developers. Follow the initiative from its start on October 29, 2025, through project completion and the mainframe shutdown on September 30, 2026.
Principled Software Solutions
Matthew Hunt
Initiative lead · the bridge
Connecting Do it Best's business and technical needs with Counterpart's software delivery.
Client
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Project supervisor
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Mainframe developer
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Integration specialist
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Development teams
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Systems engineers
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Database administrator
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Business stakeholders
Software delivery team
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Steve FinnProject 1 developer
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Ian BarthelProject 2 developer
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Scott StevensProject 3 developer
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Zach CroninProject 4 developer
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Tyler SmithQA and project management
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Arianna CruzMeeting coordinator
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Jasmine LabayogUI/UX design
Organization logos and Counterpart team photos are from their public sites: Do it Best and Counterpart About page.
Leadership and delivery
Make progress visible.
Make quality repeatable.
Matthew led delivery across all four projects, coordinating the developers with Do it Best's teams. Regular status updates, timely escalation, and clear ownership kept progress visible and helped teams respond when individual milestones fell behind.
Prove behavior before rollout
Parallel testing compared new system output with mainframe files, revealing differences early so the team could resolve them before rollout.
Make quality part of delivery
Code reviews, performance testing, and detailed support documentation backed each release. All four projects had zero critical rollbacks. Project 2 also had no emergency deployments.
Work as one team
Regular communication across PSS, Counterpart, and Do it Best kept business needs, technical decisions, and delivery priorities aligned.
Initiative start
Retire mainframe processes without losing trusted business behavior.
The initiative had to modernize several interconnected systems while protecting the services and data that Do it Best's teams and members relied on.
Projects 1 and 3 · Point of sale files
Rebuild point of sale file generation in the cloud and validate the results.
New data pipelines generated point of sale files for members. The team compared the new output with mainframe files, investigated differences, and documented approved changes before rollout.
34 weeks · 2 developers · 1 change order
Completed within the agreed fixed cost and schedule.
Project 2 · Bin and price tickets
Replace a mainframe request process with a distributed service.
Requests from business applications moved through a shared API and processing service, with generated documents and request history made available to the teams who fulfill them.
28 weeks · 1 developer · 0 change orders
Completed by the agreed end date and within the fixed project cost.
Project 4 · Vendor promotions
Move vendor promotion services off the mainframe.
The scope covered assigning vendor promotion IDs, sourcing item details from distributed data, and removing mainframe update services.
Initiative complete
All four projects delivered before the October 2026 deadline.
The team replaced the mainframe processes in scope across all four projects. Do it Best rated its overall satisfaction with the initiative 10 out of 10.
Mainframe shutdown
Do it Best powered down the mainframe.
The shutdown marked the end of the legacy platform.
Leading a complex modernization?