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akafal

Blog

Field notes.

Twenty years of finding and fixing where businesses lose time or money, distilled: build-vs-buy, why projects really fail, shipping under pressure, and doing serious work fast.

Build vs buy6 min read

The Real Cost of Bending a System to Do What It Wasn't Built For

The cheapest-looking option — bending a system you already own to do a new job — is often the most expensive. Here's where the real cost hides.

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Why projects fail7 min read

Why IT Projects Really Fail (It's Rarely the Technology)

After two decades inside enterprises and municipalities, the deadliest project failures aren't technical. They're organizational — and visible before you start.

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Build vs buy6 min read

The Best Solution Is Sometimes One That Already Exists

Custom code is satisfying to build and often the wrong call. When the best solution already exists, the senior move is to recognize it — and say so.

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Web presence5 min read

What Clients Actually Mean When They Say They Want a Website

"I need a website" almost never means a website. What clients actually need — and the one question that cuts through the noise before you spend a dollar.

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Shipping fast6 min read

How to Ship in Two Weeks When There Is No Other Option

When an external event collapses the timeline, you ship now and figure out the rest later. The framework I used to launch in two weeks under real pressure.

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AI & tooling6 min read

AI-Assisted Development: What It Actually Means in Practice

What AI-assisted development actually looks like from someone who ships real products with it every day — what it does, what it doesn't, and why judgment wins.

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Experience6 min read

What 20 Years in IT Taught Me About Building Digital Products

Analyst to IT director to founder: the lessons two decades across enterprise systems taught me about building digital products that people actually use.

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Why projects fail5 min read

Why Most Digital Projects Fail Before They Start

Most digital projects fail before a line of code is written — when the wrong question gets asked. The three questions I ask every client before building.

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Have a problem worth solving, or an idea worth building?

Book thirty minutes. We pressure-test it together and you leave knowing whether it is worth doing, roughly what it takes, and whether I am the right person to do it. If I am not, I will tell you who is.