F A I R M I L E  ·  I N S I G H T S  ·  V O L . I
A B N · 47 218 904 332N O . 0 4
Fairmile / Insights · Vol I

Short notes —
from inside the work.

Field notes from engagements, written by the principal who ran the room. Short, declarative, em-dashed. Published when there's something useful to say, never to a calendar.

All · 09 Buying · 04 Delivering · 03 Building · 02 Vol I · 2026
L e a d · N o . 0 9
B u i l d i n g  ·  2 0 2 6 — 0 9

Why letting the spreadsheet win is the pilot.

Most internal-tools pilots fail in the demo, not the build. Six rules we learned at Meridian — about leaving the rollback path live, refusing to "replace the user", and why production data on day three is the only data that counts.

D. Chen · Labs · 12 min read Read the note →
Title
Author
Topic
N · 09
Why letting the spreadsheet win is the pilot. Six rules from the Meridian routing pilot — on rollback paths, "replacing the user", and the only data that counts.
D. ChenLabs · Analyst
Building12 min
→
N · 08
Buying ERP — three questions before the demo. The shortlist is the work, not the demo. The three questions that should be on your discovery script before any vendor opens a slide.
S. MendezAdvisory · Principal
Buying9 min
→
N · 07
Cut-over weekends are the easy part. Two principals, one runbook, and the four decisions you take on the Saturday — none of which involve the technology.
J. HalloranProjects · Principal
Delivering7 min
→
N · 06
The portfolio matrix is a quarterly artefact. What Stonefield Capital learned about running their software register the same way they run their KPI scorecard.
N. PereiraAdvisory · Principal
Buying8 min
→
N · 05
Senior in the room. Always. Every time. Why our model is fewer engagements, not bigger ones — and what we won't bid for.
S. MendezFounding · Advisory
Delivering6 min
→
N · 04
The decision log is the deliverable. Steering decks lie. Status reports lie. The decision log is the only artefact in the engagement that doesn't.
J. HalloranProjects · Principal
Delivering11 min
→
N · 03
Two-week pilots, or no pilot. A pilot longer than two weeks isn't a pilot — it's the first phase of a programme that hasn't been scoped. We've stopped taking longer ones.
T. OkaforLabs · Principal
Building10 min
→
N · 02
Operating models survive software, not the other way round. Why we draw the target operating model before we ever look at a vendor — and what to do when the platform reshapes it.
N. PereiraAdvisory · Principal
Buying14 min
→
N · 01
Fixed, time and materials, or hybrid — pick the shape that fits. The opening note for Vol I — why Fairmile is flexible about how it bills, and unbending about everything else.
S. MendezFounding · Advisory
Delivering5 min
→

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