The Water Kept Flowing When Nobody Was Watching
One question will tell you whether your AI agent project is going to work, and it takes an afternoon to answer. The question is not what the agent can do. It is what the agent is allowed to do when…
Current technology, argued on the merits, by someone who ran enterprise operations for 33 years. Each piece opens on something happening right now, makes the argument, and uses the career underneath it as evidence rather than as the subject. AI agents that never reach production, modernization nobody chose, hiring when the signals stopped working, resilience funded only after a disaster, and the vendor relationships that actually matter. Written for leaders at companies under a couple hundred people, where one person still holds the whole picture. Twice weekly, Tuesday and Friday.
The Operations RoomOne question will tell you whether your AI agent project is going to work, and it takes an afternoon to answer. The question is not what the agent can do. It is what the agent is allowed to do when…
The Operations RoomIf your team has been stuck on the same problem for more than a few days, the fastest fix is usually to delete the work and start over, and almost nobody does it. I lost weeks to a bug that…
The Operations RoomBefore you buy AI-branded anomaly detection, ask the vendor one question: what does it compute? If the answer is a baseline and a deviation from that baseline, you are buying a method that has worked since long before anyone put…
The Operations RoomAsking for something is not the same as verifying you got it, and the gap between those two costs more project time than any other mistake I have watched. We asked a client for their source code. They sent it.…
The Operations RoomSoftware that keeps customer rules in code has a ceiling, and you find the ceiling at the worst possible time. Software that keeps them in a table has no ceiling at all.
The Operations RoomA resume and an interview tell you what someone says they can do. Neither one tells you what they can do. I found that out as a new manager with a vice president title and no interview training, on a…
The Operations RoomBefore you commission a technical assessment, find out what decision it is going to be used in. Honest engineers doing honest work can still produce a report that exists to strengthen somebody's position in a negotiation, and the outcome will…
The Operations RoomThe most valuable product the firm I worked for ever sold started as two people fixing something on the side because a machine was slow and it bothered them. Nobody asked for it, nobody funded it, and nobody could have…
The Operations RoomThe best hire I made in thirty-three years produced no story. The resume was accurate, the interview matched it, the background matched the interview, and the work matched all three.
The Operations RoomThe best job I ever had came from doing unglamorous maintenance work well for somebody who was watching without either of us thinking about it. No application, no resume, no search.
The Operations RoomEvery transformation vendor sells alignment, and alignment is not for sale. I ran a company off paper and onto computers with hundreds of people across every department wanting different things, and no version of that project existed where everyone was…
The Operations RoomModernization gets sold as an opportunity and it almost never arrives as one. It arrives as a bill, when a vendor stops supporting something or a platform can no longer be upgraded.
Professional ghostwriting for executives, founders, coaches, and authors who want to get the book done right. 113+ books authored. 54+ ghostwritten for clients.
Ready to discuss your book?
BOOK YOUR PRIVATE CONSULTATIONNo pitch. No pressure.
© 2026 Richard Lowe. The Writing King. All rights reserved.
