Case studies
Selected engagements.
Sixteen selected engagements across five practices, and the full library of 41 more beneath them. Client names are withheld under NDA — companies are described by sector, size and stage. The figures are real.
AI programme shaping
Deciding what an AI initiative should be — and proving it — before a budget commits.
- Insurance
Sequencing the data foundation before anyone bought an AI agent
A financial group wanted AI scoring across five affiliates. I proposed one affiliate, eighteen weeks, and a data readiness report before a single model — because the alternative is an agent trained on data nobody has reconciled.
- One affiliate, one funded phase, one go/no-go
- 18 weeks
- One affiliate, one funded phase, one go/no-go
- Data readiness report gates everything downstream
- Week 5
- Data readiness report gates everything downstream
- Corporate bankingDemo on request
Winning back the last call after two meetings had failed
A long-standing account was one bad meeting from closing. I rebuilt the pitch around the client's own operating numbers and a working prototype, and cut every claim we could not source.
- Granted on condition of proving business understanding
- One call left
- Granted on condition of proving business understanding
- Sourced claims that survived independent verification
- 21 of 25
- Sourced claims that survived independent verification
- TelecommunicationsDemo on request
Every clause gets a human verdict
Contract review is the most demoed AI use case in the enterprise and the least trusted. I built the version where the model proposes a redline and a lawyer accepts, edits or rejects each one.
- Real contract types, not one cherry-picked document
- 4 scenarios
- Real contract types, not one cherry-picked document
- The model returns machine-readable findings, not prose to re-read
- Structured output
- The model returns machine-readable findings, not prose to re-read
- MedTech
The requirements document was describing another product
A discovery review on a hospital computer-vision app that found a specification contaminated with a different product, an estimate with zeros in it, and a pilot reference for the wrong instrument set — before any of it became a commitment.
- Estimate withdrawn for rebuild instead of committed to
- 529h
- Estimate withdrawn for rebuild instead of committed to
- Vision features committed without evidence they were feasible
- 0
- Vision features committed without evidence they were feasible
Estimation & commercial governance
Estimates, discoveries and scope decisions treated as deliverables in their own right, not preambles to the real work.
- Aviation
Twenty days of discovery that priced a year of build
An airport group needed to replace a security-credentialling system under a sovereign compliance regime. Twenty person-days of discovery produced five approved deliverables and an effort envelope the fixed-price contract could stand on.
- Discovery that priced a multi-thousand-hour build
- 20 person-days
- Discovery that priced a multi-thousand-hour build
- Deliverables approved by the client
- 5 of 5
- Deliverables approved by the client
- Health tech
The estimate that covered a third of what the client thought they were buying
Two documents described two different products and both carried our logo. I stopped the contract, wrote the discrepancy register, and split the release into a fundraising build and a regulated one.
- How much of the client's version one the estimate actually covered
- 30–40%
- How much of the client's version one the estimate actually covered
- Split into a fundraising build and a regulated build
- 2 milestones
- Split into a fundraising build and a regulated build
- Software services
What the projects actually earned, once someone put cost next to revenue
Margin was assumed to be about half. Reading revenue, cost and hours together showed a spread from a third to three quarters — and one project that had quietly overrun its ceiling without a change request.
- Actual margin spread against an assumed 'about half'
- 34% – 76%
- Actual margin spread against an assumed 'about half'
- One project past its contractual ceiling, with no change request
- +12.6%
- One project past its contractual ceiling, with no change request
- Public sector technology
Fifty change requests, each with a decision attached
An offline-first enforcement app across two platforms, where the critical dependency was an interface the client was writing themselves. Every scope change got a costing and a recorded decision — which is why the overrun conversation was survivable.
- Each costed and each with a recorded decision and decision-maker
- 50 change requests
- Each costed and each with a recorded decision and decision-maker
- Two mobile platforms, offline-first, over six months
- 11 sprints
- Two mobile platforms, offline-first, over six months
- Product engineering
Eight months of predictable delivery after a paid discovery
A discovery engagement that converted into sixteen consecutive two-week sprints without a reset in between.
- Consecutive two-week sprints
- 16
- Consecutive two-week sprints
- Unbroken delivery cadence
- 8 months
- Unbroken delivery cadence
Delivery recovery
Projects already in trouble: a new baseline, an honest commercial model, a route back to green.
- Health tech
Taking a live product off another vendor in two weeks
A care-coordination platform changed hands mid-flight. Two weeks to take the credentials, audit what we had inherited, fix what was broken and stand up an environment we controlled.
- From first handover meeting to a controlled environment and a written gap analysis
- 2 weeks
- From first handover meeting to a controlled environment and a written gap analysis
- Backend, web, mobile, dependencies, security and test coverage audited separately
- 10 reports
- Backend, web, mobile, dependencies, security and test coverage audited separately
- Engineering services
An engineering firm managing utilisation instead of flow
Around ten million in revenue and effectively no operating profit. The diagnosis was not sales or cost — the company was optimising how busy people looked rather than how value moved.
- Each traced to a desired effect, not a wish list
- 18 interventions
- Each traced to a desired effect, not a wish list
- Immediate, short-term and medium-term, sequenced by dependency
- 3 waves
- Immediate, short-term and medium-term, sequenced by dependency
Delivery operating model
The systems delivery runs on — PMOs, governance, quality — built to run without me.
- Professional services
A project office that lives in a git repository
Project knowledge lived in people's heads and chat threads, and AI tools were producing confident documents with no provenance. I made the repository the single source of truth and gave every project management role a written protocol.
- Intake, scope, estimation, risk, decisions, communications and more
- 11 roles
- Intake, scope, estimation, risk, decisions, communications and more
- Decisions, change requests, risks, meetings, status, financials
- 10 templates
- Decisions, change requests, risks, meetings, status, financials
- Enterprise software
Data and people existed; the process and the cockpit did not
A delivery assurance function owned everything and controlled nothing. I diagnosed nineteen gaps, designed the target operating model, and put stop conditions in the roadmap so it could not become another initiative nobody uses.
- Traced individually to a target capability, a quarter and a platform module
- 19 gaps
- Traced individually to a target capability, a quarter and a platform module
- With acceptance criteria — a specification a developer can build from
- 67 requirements
- With acceptance criteria — a specification a developer can build from
- Software outsourcing
ISO 9001 from nothing to certified in 12 weeks
A certified quality management system built from a blank page at a remote-first software company, carried by six people at under a third of their time.
- From blank page to certification
- 12 weeks
- From blank page to certification
- QMS artefacts written and approved
- 37
- QMS artefacts written and approved
Build & prototype
Presale prototypes and MVPs that say plainly what is real, what is scripted and what is a rule.
- Consumer IoT
Shipping a wearable app before the wearable existed
A child-safety product whose hardware was not ready. We built the MVP against a mocked device contract instead of waiting, and shipped without the usual collapse when real constraints arrived.
- Estimates that settled the platform choice
- 312 vs 499
- Estimates that settled the platform choice
- Foundation to demonstrable MVP
- 5 sprints
- Foundation to demonstrable MVP
- Healthcare
A hospital field app that works without signal
Multi-tenant iOS app for clinical staff, built offline-first because the corridors it runs in have no reliable connectivity.
- Two MVP releases delivered
- 0.5 → 1.0
- Two MVP releases delivered
- Local writes, flush on reconnect
- Offline-first
- Local writes, flush on reconnect
The full library.
Everything else, one line each — estimates, prototypes, audits and programmes across 41 engagements. Every line opens a full write-up.
- HealthTechConversational onboarding for a consumer health app
- ManufacturingAI-powered process automation for a manufacturer
- FinanceProcess optimisation in financial services
- HealthcareModernising a healthcare network
- Capital marketsAn agentic core with a human gate on every state change
- ManufacturingThree AI pilots aimed at one line of the balance sheet
- Private bankingA validated proof of concept in ninety hoursDemo on request
- Generative AI productsEight AI ideas, one scorecard, two of them funded
- Delivery operationsA knowledge pipeline that pages someone
- Financial planning softwareShowing the operator's console, including where the prompts liveDemo on request
- Regional bankingOne prototype, two markets, no budget in the roomDemo on request
- Investment holdingPresenting the build-versus-buy fork before anyone fell in love with building
- Financial servicesA proposal the client could clickDemo on request
- Fuel retail fintechSelling AI engineers to a client who could already hire themDemo on request
- Cyber riskReframing a dual-use research pile into something defensible
- Software servicesNineteen estimates, one register, five minutes to an answer
- Regulated softwareCosting a medical-device certification before deciding to want it
- Private capitalThree doors instead of one number
- Clinical softwareA free assessment as the front door, and a phase plan that survives it
- Health techRefusing to fix the price when discovery had changed the product
- Enterprise softwareRestructuring the contract instead of working harder inside it
- PaymentsA red project where the client had no single voice
- Knowledge operationsTurning sixty-five gigabytes of drive dumps into context an assistant can use
- Enterprise softwareInheriting six live client engagements in one week
- Digital platformsProving a content migration lost nothing
- Portfolio managementEarned value that survives an empty project
- Delivery staffingRejecting the entire shortlist
- AI infrastructureRunning a live deal like a project, before it was one
- Professional servicesA competency matrix wired directly to pay
- Professional servicesA rollout you can click before you fund it
- AviationOne device, three roles, one signatureDemo on request
- Healthcare servicesThe demo that admitted its AI was a rulebookDemo on request
- Investment researchSeventeen architecture decisions before the first sprint
- Industrial operationsA command centre demo that ends in a work orderDemo on request
- Capital marketsGiving a bilingual site's content back to its editors
- E-commerceReading the money path first
- Professional servicesA demo library instead of a demoDemo on request
- Document operationsWhen the prototype needs a databaseDemo on request
- Food manufacturingClipboard rounds into work ordersDemo on request
- InsuranceOne product, two audiences, one prototypeDemo on request
- Asset managementThree layers for two audiences on a quantitative platform
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