https://deployedskills.com/field-notes Short reads on how teams actually ship AI. en-US Mon, 10 Aug 2026 21:14:05 GMT https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/recurring-exception-decision-debt https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/recurring-exception-decision-debt Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT The same exception keeps landing on the same busy person and gets read as a workload problem. Read across a month, the pattern says something different: a recurring exception is a decision never made, and every instance pays interest on the deferral. https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/knowledge-island-concentration-risk https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/knowledge-island-concentration-risk Fri, 07 Aug 2026 00:00:00 GMT Most founders can name one person whose departure would stall a specific capability inside of a week. Few have written those names down and counted how many there are. Concentration risk is a standing condition the owner is already carrying, present every day before the departure, not only on the day of. https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/what-not-to-fix https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/what-not-to-fix Sat, 18 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT Some operational drag is cheaper to keep than to fix, because every fix carries three costs: the build, the risk, and the hidden job the workaround was doing. The discipline is to treat keeping something alone as a real decision that expires when the business underneath it changes, not as a permanent exemption from fixing. https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/the-headcount-reflex https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/the-headcount-reflex Tue, 14 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT A team says it's underwater and three months later there's a new person on the team. The work is still late. The only thing that changed is headcount, and headcount was never the thing that was broken. https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/read-the-duct-tape https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/read-the-duct-tape Fri, 10 Jul 2026 20:41:00 GMT The unofficial tracker, taped-up checklist, or side spreadsheet is often evidence of a system gap. Read the workaround before removing it. https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/where-automation-should-stop https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/where-automation-should-stop Mon, 06 Jul 2026 02:06:00 GMT There's a natural point where every automation effort arrives at the same question. It works. It's fast. It hasn't made a mistake yet. Should it also be the one that decides? https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/the-middle-role-no-one-can-hire https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/the-middle-role-no-one-can-hire Wed, 01 Jul 2026 10:45:00 GMT Small companies often hide middle-management work inside scattered, fractional tasks that fall onto founders or nearby employees. Automation can help surface and divide that work, but only after the company defines how the work actually moves. https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/where-your-data-actually-lives https://deployedskills.com/field-notes/where-your-data-actually-lives Thu, 25 Jun 2026 16:02:00 GMT Two sources in the same company give different numbers for the same thing because no canonical source has been named. The fix is a single written decision naming which one counts, and it takes about an afternoon.