Writing from inside the work.
Pieces are published when an operating pattern has been seen clearly enough to write about with precision — not on a calendar. A Note looks closely at a single artifact, moment, or role’s task. An Analysis develops a structural argument across many.
- NoteJune 2026
The add-on price file
One price file inherited from an acquired company, kept at the close because pulling it would have broken service and never converted since, is still the record the next order to an acquired account prices through, so the integration is done on the org chart and in the consolidation but not in the file the order actually runs.
- NoteJune 2026
The EDI rejection over one character
One PO line rejected by a customer's automated feed over a single account-specific character, re-keyed by hand so the order can move, until it is plain that the order most theirs is the one the standard path cannot take.
- AnalysisJune 2026
The condition that sets off no alarm
The condition produces no internal forcing function, so the business carries it for years until an outside party reconstructs it at an event, by which time the remedy has grown more expensive than the wait.
- NoteJune 2026
The price override that became the price
One price override, approved once to hold a renewal and never retired, became the account's standing price, re-made every quarter by a credit memo that settles the difference without ever re-deciding it.
- AnalysisJune 2026
The shadow system
The real prices, dates, stock, and account rules live in a parallel system the business runs on and cannot read, and no migration carries it across.
- NoteJune 2026
The supply card
A single lead-time field, entered once and never refreshed, sets a date the whole chain then spends itself defending.
- AnalysisJune 2026
The system project is asking for rules the business has not decided
A new platform asks the business for its rules and finds history instead, so the project exposes the operating decisions the business never made, and the work it keeps stalling on is to decide the rule before any system can carry it.
- AnalysisJune 2026
Working capital is the chain, costed
One heavy balance-sheet line, followed back through the branch stock file and a safety stock held against an untrusted date to a single lead-time field, and read as capital the business is using to compensate, not capital it needs.