When organisations talk about risk, they usually focus on the visible and technical. Cyber security. Compliance. Financial controls. System resilience. These are all important, and all budgeted for. What is rarely treated as a risk is the absence of capacity. And yet, lack of capacity is one of the biggest drivers of failure, stress, and…
One of the reasons firefighting persists is that its true cost is hard to see. On the surface, work still gets done. Deadlines are met, reports are delivered, emails are answered. From the outside, the organisation appears functional, even efficient. But this apparent productivity is misleading. Firefighting shifts costs away from budgets and plans and…
In many organisations, especially in professional services and higher education, firefighting is not an exception. It is the default mode of operation. Urgent emails, last-minute data requests, unexpected issues, looming deadlines that should not be looming. Everyone is busy, everyone is reacting, and somehow this is treated as normal. Over time, constant urgency becomes background…
At the start of 2026, it feels like the conversation around AI in higher education is shifting. The early excitement has not disappeared, but it has settled into something more serious and, in some cases, more uncomfortable. The question is no longer whether institutions will use AI, but whether they are ready to use it…
When people hear that I submit a data return, they often imagine something fairly contained. A dataset.A deadline.Some validation errors.A sign-off. And yes, all of that is there. But that description misses the part I have become most interested in over time: what actually happens in the system when I do this work. Because when…
As the year draws to a close and the Christmas lights start appearing in windows, I have found myself looking back on what has been my first full year as an independent consultant. It has been a year of learning, building, experimenting, and, most of all, gratitude. If you had told me twelve months ago…
Eighth in the “Tools for Data Governance” series. In previous posts, we explored how data quality, stewardship, and metadata management create confidence in information across an institution. The next piece of the puzzle is data lineage, the ability to trace data’s journey from its origin to its final use. Knowing where data comes from and…
Seventh in the “Tools for Data Governance” series. In the last post, we looked at data stewardship, the human side of data governance that keeps information accurate and well managed. Closely linked to stewardship is the practical discipline of data quality management – the process of ensuring that data is reliable, consistent, and fit for…
Sixth in the “Tools for Data Governance” series. In the previous post, we explored how metadata management connects data dictionaries, glossaries, and catalogs into a coherent ecosystem. This time, we turn to the people who make that ecosystem work. Technology provides the structure, but people provide the care, attention, and decision-making that keep data reliable…
Fifth in the “Tools for Data Governance” series. In earlier posts in this series, we explored three key tools that underpin effective data governance: Each of these tools delivers value on its own. But their true power emerges when they’re connected through metadata management – the practice of collecting, organising, and maintaining information about data…
