1. Project phase
Whether the engagement was at initial design of a new project, during requirements definition, in the middle of in-flight delivery, in fire-response mode, or during adoption.
Cases
The shape of the work and what changes, as illustrative scenarios. Real cases follow as clients consent.
About this page
Real cases are published anonymised and only with the client's consent. Until then, this page shows typical engagement patterns as illustrative scenarios. They describe no specific organisation and claim no figures.
How each case is structured
Each case is built around four observations. Information that could identify the client is omitted — only industry category, scale band, and project phase appear.
2. The situation at the time
What the trouble was, what mismatches were sitting between stakeholders, and what was and wasn't yet decided.
3. How the engagement worked
What scope was taken on, which meetings were attended, what documents were produced — the concrete shape of the work.
4. What changed
How perceptions, agreements, and project momentum shifted before and after. Where possible, with rough quantitative figures (rework reduction, time-to-agreement, etc.).
Typical engagement patterns
Three illustrative scenarios, in the same four observations a case would use.
Illustrative scenario 1
Before requirements for a core-system renewal
Door: foundation design for new projects
- 1. Project phase
- A regulated enterprise, finance or insurance, with a core-system renewal approved and requirements definition about to start.
- 2. The situation at the time
- The business side assumed the current process would carry over; IT assumed a redesign. Who decides what was unclear, and the executives had no material to compare options.
- 3. How the engagement worked
- An initial diagnosis interviewed across the stakeholders and put purpose, priorities, and exit criteria on one page. During requirements definition, a weekly session managed the open points and produced decision-maker comparisons and an agreement log.
- 4. What changed
- What was decided, and what was deliberately left open, was written down; late-stage agreement collapses stopped. Vendor-selection material was complete, and the executive decision was made on time.
Illustrative scenario 2
Mounting rework mid-delivery on an operations system
Door: project rebalancing at the first warning signs
- 1. Project phase
- A manufacturing or logistics company, midway through delivering a new operations system.
- 2. The situation at the time
- Change requests and rework were growing, approvals stalled, and cross-department meetings were turning into blame. The relationship with the vendor was hardening.
- 3. How the engagement worked
- The misalignments were made visible, and the open points were sorted into decide now, decide later, and cannot decide yet. Meetings were redesigned; weekly point summaries and status reports reached the decision-makers. A re-alignment session with the vendor was facilitated.
- 4. What changed
- It became shared understanding that rework came from how decisions were made, not from individuals; the approval backlog began to clear. The vendor relationship shifted from blame to shared priorities.
Illustrative scenario 3
Structuring product, technology, and team at seed stage
Door: foundation design (context: startup structure sparring)
- 1. Project phase
- A seed-stage startup deciding how to build its first product.
- 2. The situation at the time
- The founder carried business, product, technology, and hiring decisions alone; outsourcing versus in-house was undecided; operations and security were being deferred.
- 3. How the engagement worked
- Monthly sparring organised business goals, product decisions, technical structure, and the initial team as one structure. Criteria for outsourcing versus in-house, and future migration and governance risks, were written down.
- 4. What changed
- The order of decisions became clear, and the scope and term of outsourcing were fixed. A policy avoiding both over-engineering and future bottlenecks was shared with the co-founders.
Disclosure policy
Only engagements with prior client consent are published here. Engagements without consent are not published. Engagements under NDA are not published without explicit client consent, regardless of the level of anonymisation.
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