Field notes on AI, IT, and getting things shipped.
- AI · 10
- Governance · 3
- Advisory · 2
- Commercial · 2
- Agents · 2
- Podcast · 2
- Operations · 2
- Mid-market · 2
- Professional Services · 1
- Architecture · 1
- Mid-Market · 1
- Enterprise · 1
- APRA · 1
- Compliance · 1
- Framework · 1
- Budgets · 1
- Vendors · 1
AI
The AI productivity surplus is up for grabs, and your fee model decides who gets it
Professional services firms are quietly capturing a 20 to 40 percent productivity uplift from AI. Clients have started noticing. Whoever moves their commercial model first keeps the surplus. Whoever moves last watches it flow to the buyer.
27 Sept 2026Read
AI
Build plus subscribe: how mid-market firms should buy AI capability
The traditional project-fee shape doesn't work for AI. Pure SaaS doesn't work either. There is a specific hybrid that does, and it is quietly becoming how the good AI engagements are commercially structured. Here's what it looks like and why it holds up.
9 Sept 2026Read
AI
Deterministic pipelines: the load-bearing rule for production AI agents
There is one architectural rule that separates AI agents that survive contact with production from AI agents that quietly get switched off. It is not more prompts, better models, or tighter guardrails. It is where you draw the line between what the model decides and what code owns.
19 Aug 2026Read
AI
Where AI agents are actually earning their keep in the mid-market
Vendor pitches for AI agents promise to transform whole businesses. What's actually paying back inside 100 to 1,000 person firms is more specific, more boring, and much more useful. Here's what's working, what isn't, and what makes the difference.
15 July 2026Read
AI
AI management systems: what they actually are, and what to buy
The phrase covers two completely different things (a management standard and a vendor category), and most mid-market firms buy the platform before they have the policy. Here's the order that actually works.
16 June 2026Read
AI
Podcast — Episode 80: Rethinking AI in the Enterprise with Andrew Welch
Andrew Welch from Cloud Lighthouse on the 80% pilot failure rate, why AI is a marble cake rather than a layer cake, and the three things every IT leader should do on Monday morning.
19 May 2026Read
Operations
Stop using your team as the integration layer
When your SaaS tools don't talk, your humans become the integration layer. The hidden cost is three or four FTEs of manual data shuffling nobody counts.
6 May 2026Read
Operations
The forms paradox: when automation outcosts the work
Most mid-market firms have a work-request form that takes longer to fill in than the task. Here's the three-question test for finding yours — and why it persists.
30 Apr 2026Read
AI
Shadow AI: the productivity gold rush, 18 months on
Eighteen months on, the picture has clarified: bans don't work, blanket permissiveness creates liability, and the firms getting it right do three specific things.
28 Apr 2026Read
AI
Podcast — Episode 79: Agentic AI adoption and governance
Joshua Rubens and I cut through the agentic-AI hype on the latest Leading IT — what's real, what's marketing, and a practical playbook for Australian IT leaders standing up AI agents in 2026.
28 Apr 2026Read
APRA
Navigating CPS 230: ten months in, what's actually changed
CPS 230 went live on 1 July 2025. Ten months later, here's what's working, what's tripping firms up, and where AI genuinely earns its keep — without becoming the compliance silver bullet vendors keep selling.
28 Apr 2026Read
AI
Professional services: use this framework to get ready for AI
Find · Win · Deliver · Learn — the four-stage operating model we use to assess AI readiness in professional services firms, and where the quick wins actually sit.
15 June 2025Read
Budgets
The IT budget squeeze: why ambition without a roadmap leads to frustration
Every IT leader has lived this: the business demands more, then cuts the budget. The fix isn't a louder pitch — it's a better roadmap.
5 May 2025Read
Vendors
Are my tech vendors really working for me?
Most tech vendors quietly steer the relationship. Four moves that put you back in the driving seat.
30 Mar 2025Read