Field Notes
Practical writing for product leaders and boutique advisors – on deciding what to build, answering the hard questions, and running a sharper practice.
Consulting Operations posts, page 3
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsI Wrote Down Eight Risks. All Eight Happened. Nobody Moved.
I logged eight risks against a product at Adaptavist. Within a year all eight had happened and we killed it. Writing them down changed nothing.
Field Notes
Consulting Operations47% of Boutique Firms Lost a Quarter to Half Their Pipeline to ‘No Decision’
Nearly half of boutique firms lost a quarter to half their closed-lost pipeline to no decision. That isn't a closing problem. It's an evidence one.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsThe Five Lenses I Run Before I Diagnose a Team
A team blamed an engineer for 90-day tickets. His actual time in queue was five. Here are the five lenses I run before I diagnose a team.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsThe Person Closest to the Problem Is the Last to See It
The person closest to a problem is often the last to see its gaps — that's how expertise works. Which is exactly why a solo advisor needs outside eyes.
Field Notes
Consulting Operations'MBB Depth Without the MBB Team' Is Half an Answer
A wave of vendors offers boutique advisors MBB-depth research without the MBB team. It's real, it's cheap, and it's only half of what the work needs.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsHow to Research an Audience You've Never Served
Researching an audience you've never served is a different job: the whole task is telling real demand from polite interest. Here's how it's done.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsYour Features Shipped. Your Metrics Didn't Move. The Gap Has a Name.
Your team ships on schedule and the numbers stay flat. That's the build trap — and cheap AI building made it easier to fall into and costlier to ignore.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsYou Don't Choose a Direction Once
You can't set a heading once and walk — the trees pull you off course. Product direction is a bet you re-make, not a decision you make once.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsThe Highest-Value Answer in Market Validation Is 'No'
Validation isn't a green light. For one client, its most valuable output was a no — before a dollar went into a market that wasn't there.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsWhen Your Research Tool Tells You What You Want to Hear
An AI research tool handed me a confident number that was exactly what I wanted to hear — and wrong. The verification gap is the step cheap answers skip.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsI Ran Three Research Projects Through Tavily and Exa. Exa Won All Three.
I ran the same deep-research plan through Tavily and Exa three times, blind-judged and single-variable. Exa won all three — cheaper, faster, more complete.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsAn 80% Team Beats a 95% Team
Ship at 80% and a learning team compounds past a team that polishes to 95% – because shipping is the loop, and the cost of over-polishing is invisible.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsResearch Agents Get Less Accurate the More They Read: 42% Worse From 2 Tool Calls to 150
Deep research agents keep link validity above 92% at every depth while fact-check accuracy falls 42%, so here's the order to verify a report in.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsYou've Researched Enough When Three People Who Live the Problem Agree It's Real
Analysis paralysis isn't cured by more confidence. The stopping rule: when three or four people who live the problem agree your hypothesis is real.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsYour Metric Isn't a Target. It's a Hypothesis You Forgot to Test
Features ship and the metric stays flat because teams treat the metric as a target to hit, not the hypothesis it was built to test.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsConsultant or Fractional CPO? You're Asking the Wrong Question
Founders compare a fractional CPO and a consultant on price and hours – but the real question is whether your gap is a decision or an operating system.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsThe Most Valuable Thing Research Can Tell You Is "No"
Before you build for a new market, the research that pays for itself is usually the one that returns a defensible no, not a green light.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsKPMG Published a Report on Agentic AI. 40 of Its 45 Citations Were Fabricated.
I reported a bounce rate that was real and wrong, which is the small version of what just happened to four of the world's largest advisory firms.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsWriting for People Is Persuasion Now. Writing for Agents Is Instruction.
Most documentation readers are agents now, which splits the job in two: writing for a person is persuasion, and writing for an agent is instruction.
Field Notes
Consulting OperationsAgents Refactored 26% of Commits. Design Smells Fell by Exactly Zero.
AI agents refactored 26% of commits in a 15,451-instance study, and the median change in design smell counts was exactly zero.
Browse by month
November 2026 · October 2026 · September 2026 · August 2026 · July 2026 · June 2026 · May 2026 · April 2026
Get the Fieldway newsletter
Field notes on the craft and business of running a lean advisory practice. One short email every morning.