Essays on data, work, and personal growth that help you simplify without flattening what matters.

It is March 2026, I am looking for a new role, and the market is tough as hell.

I have been raiding other engineering disciplines for ideas that analytics has been too slow to borrow.

Dashboard engineering is the place where structural weaknesses become most visible. When requirement engineering cuts corners, when data engineering lacks rigour, when governance is absent, the dashboard is where all of it surfaces.In the following, I present a distilled diagnostic: five failure modes, their root causes, and their antidotes.

My feed is full of infographics reminding us that a data stack is not a data strategy. I agree with the premise , most organisations mistake “buying tools” for “making choices.”

Since the recent surge of interest in artificial intelligence (AI), I observe an increasing tendency to use AI terminology to describe tools and services. I would like to offer a different perspective on why data remains indispensable, even in this AI-driven era.

January 2nd 2025 — the day I took my second-ever ski lesson.The first? Fifteen years earlier.

The day arrived, as it does for most analyses, when we had to reckon with the poor choices we had made in the data and analytics design.

As I close out my 10-year consulting series, I want to tackle one of the most enduring and paradoxical phrases in our field: The client is always right.

As a consultant, I am often brought into projects that are already underway. Typically, I am not privy to the initial kick-off discussions, the full project scope, or a complete understanding of all the stakeholders involved. My role is often “constrained” to a specific aspect of the project, and the clients usually provide information and context only for that particular piece.

Consulting demands adaptability, but it doesn’t mean simply bending to fit every client’s environment. True adaptability is about balance — balancing the client’s working style, the pace of progress, and the level of ownership we assume. Done well, this balance respects the client’s unique context while ensuring we remain effective and grounded in our role.