§ Method
Every engagement starts by defining what has to exist when I am gone.
Six moves. Each one ends with something the team can use without me in the room. The output is the operating loop, not a deck.
- 01
What are we actually trying to decide?
Set the requested deliverable aside. Name the real decision, pressure, or failure under it. If we cannot say the decision out loud in one sentence, no tool is going to save us.
Leaves behind
- Decision named in one sentence
- Owner
- Deadline that matters
- 02
What do we already have?
Inventory tools, data, reports, workflows, spreadsheets, models, people knowledge, constraints, and the ugly-but-important systems nobody puts in a deck. The useful part is usually already in the room.
Leaves behind
- Inventory of what exists
- Who actually uses it
- Where it lives
- 03
What is secretly doing the work?
Find the workaround, the side calculation, the one person everyone DMs on Thursday. If one person has to explain the process every Thursday, that is not a process. That is a hostage situation.
Leaves behind
- Hidden logic written down
- Single points of failure
- Workarounds in plain view
- 04
What assumption is wrong?
Identify the default belief causing the break. Default buyer, default user, default forecast, default workflow, default cost flow. The dashboard is not the system. Sometimes it is just where the system goes to lie.
Leaves behind
- Assumption ledger
- Counter-case test
- What changes if it is wrong
- 05
What method transfers?
Borrow the right method from wherever this shape of problem has already been solved. Not best practice. Transferred logic. Fluid dynamics into a dehydration room. First-principles physics into a pricing process. Engineering-shaped problem solving into messy commercial rooms.
Leaves behind
- Method named and sourced
- Why it fits this shape
- Where it breaks
- 06
What survives without me?
Build the smallest usable system, model, review loop, question set, page, or operating rhythm the team can run after I go. If the loop does not survive my absence, it is not a system. It is a vacation.
Leaves behind
- Smallest usable system
- Review cadence
- Question set the team owns
Operating principle
If the loop doesn't survive my absence, it isn't a system.