Insights
Articles on the topics where software initiatives are won or lost.
Field notes
Concrete examples, patterns and experience.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Tamper-proof logging: why database logs do not count in an audit
Almost every system logs. Audits still fail on the question of who changed what and when. The difference between a log and evidence — and what creates it.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Production readiness in the AI factory: what to check when agents write the code
Requirements are agent-readable, the arc42 is maintained, the pipeline is green. The old question — does it run? — has become trivial. The new one: how do we know a change is right when nobody read every line?
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Production readiness checklist: 12 questions experienced teams carry in their heads
Almost no team ticks off a list before deploying — and that is normal. These twelve questions are useful anyway: as a planning tool during architecture, and as a starting point after the next outage.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Who skipped the credit check? Order fulfilment across five systems
One wrong delivery, five systems, three hours of searching — and a simple new approval rule costs eight weeks. A worked example from B2B distribution: how an event foundation solves traceability and changeability at once.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Modernising a monolith without rebuilding everything
The big rewrite is almost always the most expensive option. Most monoliths can be modernised step by step — if you find the right cut and do not try to replace legacy and business processes at the same time.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Who promised what? When nobody can reconstruct what happened
A customer asks about a commitment made months ago. Five people spend two and a half hours across six tools — and the results contradict each other. A worked example of how a single source of truth makes that question answerable.
Marketing & positioningField notes
Good tech, bad story: positioning for IT service providers
Many technical service providers are excellent at delivery but hard to communicate. The story a customer understands is rarely the story the team tells about itself. Positioning is the bridge between them.
People & cultureField notes
Ownership instead of roles: who is really accountable after go-live
A system goes live. Three months later nobody knows who is accountable for a critical failure. The difference between a role and ownership is the difference between a system that runs and one that lands.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Multi-tenancy with Keycloak: what belongs in the token and what doesn't
Multi-tenancy rarely fails at the login screen — it fails at the model behind it. A practical guide to realms, roles, token design and migrating existing users.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Event modeling is not an architecture tool — it is an adoption tool
Event modeling is sold as a technique. Its biggest effect lies elsewhere: business and engineering see the same picture for the first time and decide together what gets built.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Event sourcing without fear: when it pays off and when it doesn't
Event sourcing is often seen as a risk. In reality it is a tool with a very specific use case: wherever the history of data matters more than its current state.
Engineering & deliveryField notes
Fractional CTO: when part-time technical leadership works — and when it doesn't
A guide for SMEs: what a fractional CTO actually does, five signals that you need one, what realistically happens in the first 90 days — and when the role is the wrong answer.
Foundation
The underlying stance on this area — why we work the way we do.
Engineering & deliveryFoundation
Tenant separation that survives the security questionnaire
One forgotten filter is a reportable incident. Why isolation in application code is not evidence — and which models enterprise buyers accept.
GeneralFoundation
Why digital initiatives fail at the transitions
Projects rarely fail because of code. They fail where responsibility changes hands: from decision to delivery, from delivery to use, from use to impact. The thesis behind Kaihito.
People & cultureFoundation
Teams that carry transformation: psychological safety is not a comfort topic
In digital initiatives it is not a team's motivation that decides the outcome, but whether bad news travels upwards early. On psychological safety, leadership and recruiting in transformation contexts.
Sales & go-to-marketFoundation
Selling complex software — inside first, then outside
Every software initiative is sold twice: once to the customer and once to your own organisation. The second sale decides adoption — and is almost always forgotten.
Engineering & deliveryFoundation
Software that lasts: why we start with the domain — not with the stack
Most systems do not fail because of the technology choice, but because nobody understood the domain properly. On event modeling, event sourcing and ownership as the foundation of durable software.
Marketing & positioningFoundation
Tech Positioning: Substance Over Buzzwords
The true value of software often remains invisible. This article explores how IT companies can move beyond generic claims to establish authentic positioning with real impact.
Engineering & deliveryFoundation
The three transitions: architecture, delivery, adoption
Software initiatives rarely fail in the middle of a phase. They fail at the transitions — where ownership quietly changes hands.
Notes
Short thoughts, links and videos.
Engineering & deliveryNote
Bolt-on logging: where is the truth?
AI takes the burden of human vagueness off us. So why do we place a second vagueness — a log — next to our core processes?
People & cultureNote
Twelve roles become three: what Gartner's team shapes mean for provability
Gartner expects smaller engineering teams. The role map behind it mostly removes translation roles — and with them the places where decisions used to get written down as a side effect.