About this site

Most of my career has been spent inside large organisations at the moment they decide to change: new operating models, new architectures, new structures drawn confidently on whiteboards. I have drawn plenty of them myself.

What I noticed over time is that the drawings were rarely the problem. The organisations that thrived after change and the ones that struggled were often given much the same structures. The difference lay in things no structure chart shows: the rhythms people work to, the relationships decisions travel through, the small behaviours that tell everyone what is really rewarded here. I call that layer the fabric. Organisations never quite notice they are missing it, which is why I write about it.

My independent practice is where that thinking is tested against reality: operating model design, capability modelling, enterprise architecture advisory, and architect capability building and coaching. The Fabric is the publication where ideas are worked out in public and, soon, in a book.

A few things I believe, which you will find running through both. Architecture is a sensing discipline, not an accounting one; its job is to give people enough to decide, and to be honest about what is not known. Value in organisations is generated at the interfaces between things, not inside them, though we keep hiring, designing, and measuring for the interiors. Curiosity beats judgement because most behaviour that looks irrational is a reasonable response to conditions you have not yet encountered. And structure inserted before the fabric is ready does not fail politely; it creates turbulence.

If any of that sounds like the problem you are sitting in, the essays are the long answer, and the Work with me page is the short one.

A note on where things stand. The site is new. A handful of essays have been ported from LinkedIn, each with its original publication date, so if a piece is dated 2024 that's when it was written. Around thirty more sit in the LinkedIn archive waiting their turn. A book called The Fabric is being written and released here one chapter at a time; that lives on its own page.

Things will be up and running here shortly, but you can subscribe in the meantime if you'd like to stay up to date and receive emails when new content is published!