Insights
Notes from the work.
Field notes on delivery, governance and applied AI, drawn from two decades of landing hard programmes. Published first on LinkedIn, kept here in full.
Everything else, newest first.
Most weeks bring a new note, usually a Monday. Each one is a position, not a summary: delivery, governance and applied AI, argued from the work rather than the framework deck.
The Automation Arbitrage Mistake
Eight in ten enterprises cut staff in their AI pilots. None of the cuts correlated with higher returns. The firms that won used AI to amplify people, not replace them.
DeliveryAccountable, but not in control
What grinds delivery leads down is not volume. It is the gap between what you are accountable for and what you actually control. Naming that gap is the first move that is fully yours.
DeliveryThe Empty Chair: What fighter pilots know about Go-Live
Fighter pilots fly the mission in their heads before they leave the ground. Most delivery teams just wait to find out what happens at go-live. Brief it, chair-fly the worst day, design the debrief before you run it.
DeliveryThe First 90 Days of a Delivery Leader
The canonical playbook was written for an organisation that no longer exists. Listen, do not touch. Diagnose, do not strategise. By day 90, make one change, made well.
PMO & GovernanceYour PMO Has the Wrong Boss
The PMO reports to the CIO. It looks tidy on an org chart. It is wrong. Delivery is operational, not technical, and the reporting line shapes behaviour for a decade.
Change & AdoptionChange is not a project. It's a Practice.
Big-bang go-live, townhall, logo mug, done. Then adoption stalls. Change moves in three layers at three speeds, and only the slowest one decides whether it holds.
Applied AIAI democratised the How. The Why is now your moat.
AI has collapsed the moat that lived in the How. When proficiency is available at near-marginal cost, strategic clarity about who you serve, the Why, becomes the asset that compounds.
DeliveryWhy Projects Fail: It's Never the Plan
After twenty years, the number one reason projects fail is not scope, budget, or technology. It is the conversation someone avoided. Make truth travel faster than politics.
Written for people who would rather think clearly than be flattered.
A new note most weeks. Follow along on LinkedIn, or bring the situation behind one and we will answer honestly on whether it is a fit.