When should a workflow use rules, AI or human review?
Choose the decision boundary before choosing the model. A stable lookup, a judgment about a photograph and permission to change a business record are different problems.
FIELD NOTES
Better questions.
Better project briefs.
Practical decisions from real implementations, with links to the underlying work.
How to scope a repair when two systems disagree
A mismatched total is a symptom. Before deleting duplicates or rerunning an import, establish which records should exist and how they reached the destination.
What to define before commissioning an internal tool
A useful brief describes the operation, not just a list of screens. Define who changes which records, what they need to decide and what delivery must prove.
01
Why these guides exist
Most projects that go badly were scoped badly, and the scoping went wrong before anybody wrote code. These three cover the decisions that determine whether a build is straightforward or expensive: where the line falls between rules and interpretation, what to establish before replacing a working tool, and how to investigate a disagreement between two systems. Each is written from work that shipped, and each cites the case studies it came from.
02
How to use them
Read the one that matches the decision in front of you, then bring its closing brief to a first conversation — with me or with anyone else you are evaluating. They are written to be useful before you hire, including if you hire somebody else. A buyer who arrives with a defined decision boundary and one real example gets a better scope out of any engineer.
03
What they deliberately avoid
No tool rankings, no best-platform verdicts, no vendor comparison tables. The right answer depends on what your data looks like and who has to live with the exception path, so these teach the questions and show how they were answered on real systems rather than naming a winner.
START WITH A $150 AUDIT
Where is your business losing
leads or hours?
Tell me what happens today and what keeps going wrong. I reply with times for a 45-minute audit call; you get a written fix list with fixed prices, and the $150 is credited against any build.