Several years ago a wonderful former colleague of mine told me the old story about NASA spending a fortune developing a pen that could write in zero gravity, while the simpler answer would have been to use a pencil. The story is not quite as clean as the legend suggests, but the lesson still holds…
There’s a pattern emerging across organisations — and it’s particularly visible in local government. London councils are rolling out Microsoft Copilot licences and presenting it as an AI strategy. Ealing trialled 250 seats. Enfield expanded to 635. Hammersmith & Fulham enabled Copilot for Edge so staff could “get familiarised”. Licences are purchased, pilots are launched,…
My wife asked me this the other evening: “What do you actually think about in all those hours when you ran the Dubai marathon?” It’s a simple question, but my answer wasn’t. Because it’s not one thing. It’s a whole ton of things. And those things change constantly as you adapt to different phases of…
Transformation gets a lot of attention – new systems, new platforms, new initiatives — it all creates a sense of progress. It’s visible, easy to explain, and gives people something concrete to point to. Simplification doesn’t work like that. From what I have seen, simplification is usually the harder problem — and the one that…
For a CTO delivering technology isn’t the hard part. Most organisations, given enough time and budget, will eventually implement systems, platforms, or tools. Where things fall short is what happens around that delivery — and how consistently it is carried through, how well it holds together over time, and whether the value actually remains intact….
I used to work with someone who had a saying that drove some colleagues mad. He’d ship early. Launch things that weren’t quite ready. Roll out tools that still had visible rough edges. And every time someone pushed back, he’d say: “Let’s fix forward.” At the time, it felt uncomfortable. Risky, even. People wanted the…
Daniel Kahneman’s research on System 1 and System 2 thinking helps explain why some workplace decisions — especially around technology like AI — feel rushed or oversimplified. His model shows that we don’t always think in one consistent way. Instead, we alternate between two systems: In busy work environments filled with deadlines and pressure, System…
“Every abandoned tool in your tech stack tells a story about a decision no one made” Most tech stacks aren’t pristine ecosystems. They’re haunted houses. Dig a little and you’ll find zombie applications no one uses, tools from vendors long forgotten, and shadow workflows left behind by employees who no longer work there. These aren’t…
We’ve got a group of students with us this week, shadowing different teams and working on a project about decision-making under uncertainty. After a few scenario discussions, one theme stood out: time pressure changes everything. That led me to reflect on something I’ve come to call forced time — when your natural pace of thinking…
Transforming procurement and supply chain operations requires more than just the right tools—it demands a clear strategy, strong leadership, and seamless execution. Hear from Adam Lalani, Chief Technology Officer, and Biju Raman, Procurement Director, at Alliad, on how YCP supported us in our Source-to-Pay (S2P) implementation and led a strategic procurement and supply chain optimization…