Executive Insights

These insights are written for leaders who want clarity before they want solutions. They focus on patterns I see repeatedly in organizations struggling to scale delivery, improve reliability, or turn technical investment into business outcomes. This is not thought leadership for its own sake. Each piece is designed to sharpen your diagnosis, challenge assumptions, and help you decide whether intervention is needed, and where it should start.

How to Use These Insights

Each insight answers a specific diagnostic question:

If you already know your problem, start with problems I solve to see related case studies and outcomes. If you need to sharpen your diagnosis first, these insights provide that perspective.

Diagnostic Perspectives

Each insight addresses a specific question that senior leaders face. Review the relevance signal to identify which patterns match your situation.

Why “Estimate Accuracy” Is Quietly Increasing Your Delivery Risk

Estimate accuracy does not increase control. It changes behavior. Teams inflate estimates to reduce exposure, defer risk rather than surface it, and avoid complex work. False certainty replaces real learning.

Why it persists: Organizations treat estimates as commitments rather than information. Once accuracy becomes visible to leadership, it becomes judgement, and the system adapts rationally to protect itself.

Relevance: If your organization appears predictable on paper but feels fragile in reality, this explains why control is an illusion.

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Why AI Is Making Delivery Harder for Development Managers, Not Easier

AI shifts work from solving to validating. When requirements evolve informally and knowledge lives in conversations, AI amplifies ambiguity rather than absorbing it.

Why it persists: Delivery managers inherit AI as a mandate without the organizational clarity needed to make it work safely.

Relevance: If your teams spend more time correcting AI outputs than writing code, this explains the mismatch.

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Why AI Isn’t Delivering What You Were Sold

AI fails when organizations lack decision clarity. Experiments produce interesting outputs, but ambiguous priorities prevent those outputs from becoming trusted signals teams will act on.

Why it persists: Leaders treat AI as a technology problem rather than an organizational clarity problem.

Relevance: If your AI initiatives feel expensive and fragile, this explains where the constraint sits.

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Why AI Rarely Moves the Revenue Needle the Way Growth Leaders Expect

Revenue systems depend on decisions, not data. AI cannot improve decisions when organizations cannot agree on intent, ownership, or success criteria across marketing, sales, product, and operations.

Why it persists: AI investments focus on insight generation rather than decision improvement. More dashboards and models don't translate to action when teams can't agree on decisions.

Relevance: If your AI delivers signals but revenue growth stays flat, this explains the gap between activity and outcome.

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Why Portfolio Performance Plateaus Even When Individual Teams Appear Productive

Portfolios governed through annual planning, stage-gates, and fixed commitments provide visibility but not adaptability. Risk accumulates quietly and emerges late when uncertainty is structural.

Why it persists: Portfolio mechanisms designed to reduce risk assume low uncertainty. In volatile markets, risk doesn't disappear because it's planned away.

Relevance: If your board sees busy execution but strategic returns plateau, this explains why governance creates false confidence.

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What to Do After Reading

Once an insight resonates with your situation:

  1. Identify the underlying constraint: Review the related problem page to understand the structural pattern
  2. See proof of resolution: Explore case studies that show how this constraint was addressed
  3. Understand what changes: Review outcomes that become available when this constraint is resolved

Insights sharpen your diagnosis. The diagnostic conversation determines whether the constraint is addressable in your context.