I agree, I think it’s an alternative to answering your SVP with:
“You remember how our entire team left last year because they were fed up? Those were all the people with knowledge of the system.
You also remember how you gave us a budget of 50k to hire replacements? Well, we used it on one developer, and he’s left university this year, so doesn’t even know what jQuery is, much less how to work on that system.
That’s why changes are slow.”
Much preferable to not shame him like that and just summarize it as “It was built 4 years ago with jQuery.”
“You remember how our entire team left last year because they were fed up? Those were all the people with knowledge of the system.
You also remember how you gave us a budget of 50k to hire replacements? Well, we used it on one developer, and he’s left university this year, so doesn’t even know what jQuery is, much less how to work on that system.
That’s why changes are slow.”
Much preferable to not shame him like that and just summarize it as “It was built 4 years ago with jQuery.”