Blog

Writing from the people doing the work.

Practitioner notes on architecture, migration, and delivery — including the engagements that did not go to plan.

Latest

Recent articles

Written by the engineers and consultants on the engagements, not by a content team.

Architecture

The strangler fig is the only migration that finishes

Why big-bang replacements of core systems keep failing, and how to sequence an incremental migration that ships to production from month two.

11 min readEngineering

Available on request

Artificial Intelligence

Most enterprise AI failures are data governance failures

The model is rarely the bottleneck. A look at what actually blocks production deployment, based on the ones we have had to unblock.

9 min readAI Practice

Available on request

Cloud

Your cloud bill is an architecture diagram

Reading a cost report as a design document — what egress charges, idle capacity, and storage tiers reveal about decisions made years ago.

7 min readCloud Practice

Available on request

Security

Nine hundred findings and nothing to do on Monday

Scanner output sorted by CVSS is close to useless for prioritisation. A practical method for ranking by reachable attack path instead.

12 min readSecurity Practice

Available on request

Data

One number, three answers: fixing metric drift

How revenue comes to mean four different things inside one organisation, and what a governed semantic layer does and does not solve.

8 min readData Practice

Available on request

Delivery

What we changed after a cutover went badly

An honest post-mortem of a migration that overran, the assumptions that caused it, and the checks now built into every engagement.

10 min readDelivery

Available on request

What we cover

Five topic areas, and roughly how often

Written by the engineers who did the work rather than by a content team, which is why the cadence varies.

Delivery practice

Most read
What we write about
Estimation, phase gates, migration rehearsal, incident review
Who it is for
Engineering and delivery leads
Cadence
Roughly fortnightly

Architecture

What we write about
Modular monoliths, strangler patterns, integration contracts
Who it is for
Architects and principal engineers
Cadence
Monthly

Data and AI

What we write about
Semantic layers, evaluation sets, retrieval design, cost per outcome
Who it is for
Data and platform teams
Cadence
Monthly

Security

What we write about
Validated findings, identity design, supply-chain provenance
Who it is for
Security and platform engineering
Cadence
Monthly

Post-mortems

What we write about
Things that went wrong on our own engagements, anonymised
Who it is for
Anyone who has had a bad cutover
Cadence
As they happen

Questions

About the writing

Including whether we publish the engagements that went wrong.

About the writing

Who writes these?

The engineers who did the work, edited but not ghost-written. That makes the cadence less predictable than a content calendar would produce and the detail considerably better, which is the trade we have chosen deliberately.

Do you write about engagements that went badly?

Yes — the post-mortem posts are consistently the most read. They are anonymised and shared with the client before publication, and we have never had one refused. A supplier who only publishes successes is telling you nothing you can use.

Can we republish or quote these?

Quote freely with attribution and a link. For full republication, ask us first — usually the answer is yes, and we would like to know where it is going. Assets and brand guidance are on the media kit page.

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