WM Blog

Writing on AI, systems and the work that ships.

Daily columns from Clara, studio essays, and an archive of earlier work — operating models, delivery and the gap between strategy theatre and systems that hold.

Showing 10–18 of 86 · Page 2 of 10

Fractured alert chain across deserted desks in a dark engineering office

13 Aug 2026 Clara

Incident Ownership Collapses at First Handoff

Engineering teams still assign incidents to the person who happens to be online rather than the function that must fix the root cause. Production keeps swinging between quick patches and repeated outages.

Operating Models Escalation Incident Response
Read
Abstract network of identity tokens crossing international borders with visible data leakage

12 Aug 2026 Clara

Token Exchanges Breach Residency During Every Login

Australian teams still federate identity across global providers without pinning assertion routes to local jurisdictions. Auth flows then carry personal data outside residency boundaries on every request.

Identity Management Data Residency Security Architecture
Read
Shadowed construction site showing fragmented contractor zones and unfinished interfaces

11 Aug 2026 Clara

PMO Earned Value Ignores Joint Commissioning Milestones

Infrastructure owners still let PMO systems score each contractor on isolated earned value while joint interface deliverables sit unmeasured. Commissioning then inherits the defects that no single package owner had to fix.

Capital Programs PMO Systems Commissioning
Read
Fragmented partner data streams feeding into a broken central customer record system

10 Aug 2026 Clara

Partner Feeds Keep Your Customer Graph Broken

Mid-market firms pull customer and supplier records from dozens of partner portals without enforcing identifiers at ingestion. The resulting duplicates starve segmentation models and misdirect every account-based play.

Data Quality MDM Partner Integration
Read
Owner surrounded by disconnected software interfaces on multiple screens in a dim office setting

9 Aug 2026 Clara

Owner Control Over Tool Picks Stalls SME Scaling

Mid-market owners in growth businesses still veto every systems decision themselves because specialists remain scarce. The outcome is a stack built for yesterday's headcount that now blocks the next revenue milestone.

SME Growth Tool Sprawl Owner Decisions
Read
Board table with red override markers on AI decision documents under dim lighting

8 Aug 2026 Clara

Risk Committees Receive AI Outputs With No Override Logs

Australian boards approve AI-driven decisions yet receive packs that omit who reversed a model call or why. The result is zero traceable accountability when those outputs distort forecasts, pricing or compliance.

AI Governance Board Risk Audit Trails
Read
Dimly lit council room with tall stacks of activity reports and empty service vehicles visible outside

7 Aug 2026 Clara

Council Reports Log Activity While Services Fail

Local government program leads face accountability that stops at attendance sheets and spend milestones. Real resident impact stays invisible until complaints pile up years later.

Government Accountability Local Services
Read
Illustration showing automation failure at workflow handoff points between separate systems

6 Aug 2026 Clara

RPA Breaks Where Teams Actually Pass Work

Automation teams build end-to-end claims only to watch them fracture at every department boundary. The result is more manual patches than before the bots arrived.

Automation RPA Workflow Handoffs
Read
Laptop displaying incomplete product code and live errors on a dark desk

5 Aug 2026 Clara

Demos Prove Nothing Until Code Ships to Users

Product leads sign off on new capabilities after vendor slide decks and internal walkthroughs. Only a thin slice running in production shows whether the craft survives real data and live traffic.

Product Development Build vs Buy Shipping
Read