Selected Work
Clients are not named here, and no client document appears. Each case study describes what was built and how, with everything identifying removed. The specimens further down are illustrative — built from invented facts to show the form of the work, not anyone's actual matter.
Before and after. Illustrative — built from invented examples to show the form of the work, not any client's documents.
Number: 01
A Document Library
Built to One Standard, Over Two Years
Private client. Named at no point, by agreement.
The Situation
A privately held venture had accumulated documentation the way most ventures do: written by different people, at different times, to no shared standard. Terms drifted between documents. The same concept had three names. Formatting varied page to page, so nothing looked like it belonged to the same organization — and more seriously, nobody could tell whether two documents actually agreed with each other.
What I Did
I built the standard first, before writing a single page of content: a written specification covering document structure, typography, headings, numbering, tables and colour, so that any document produced afterwards would match every document produced before it.
Then a terminology register — every defined term recorded once, with its approved form, and a list of words that were not to be used at all. Where a term had been used loosely across older material, it was reconciled to one form throughout.
Then the library itself, produced against that standard and running to several hundred pages, with each document cross-referenced to the others it depended on.
What Required the Most Care
The material described things that had not yet been proven. That is where documentation goes wrong — a claim gets a little stronger each time it is restated, and two years later nobody can trace where the strong version came from.
So the standard included a rule about language: every statement was graded by how much support it actually had, and the wording was fixed to match. What was established could be stated. What was intended, or hoped for, or still being tested had to say so, in words agreed in advance. No document was allowed to promote itself up a grade.
The Result
A library where any document can be checked against the standard, any term traced to its definition, and any claim traced to what supports it. New documents are written to the same specification years later without anyone having to remember how it was done.
Before and after. Illustrative — built from invented examples to show the form of the work, not any client's documents.
Number: 02
A Complete Set of Role Documents,
Written Once, Consistent Throughout
Private client. Named at no point, by agreement.
The Situation
An established company needed formal descriptions for a set of roles across its operation. What existed was uneven — some roles documented in detail, others not at all, no shared structure, and language that changed depending on who had written it. The documents were needed for decisions where consistency matters: comparing one role against another, and being able to show that the comparison was made on the same basis.
What I Did
One template first: the same sections, in the same order, at the same level of detail, for every role. Then each document drafted against it from the material supplied.
The verbs were standardized — responsibilities expressed the same way throughout, so two roles can be read side by side without one sounding more senior purely because of how it was written. Delivered complete, as one set, in an editable format and a print-ready one.
What Required the Most Care
Role documents get used to decide things: pay, structure, who reports to whom, who gets hired. Wording that is precise in one document and vague in another creates a difference that isn't real, and nobody notices it was a writing artifact rather than a fact about the job.
Holding the level of specificity identical across an entire set is harder than writing any single document well. That is most of the work.
The Result
A set in which every role is described on the same terms, comparable to every other, and extendable — a role added two years later slots into the same template and reads as part of the same family.
Before and after. Illustrative — built from invented examples to show the form of the work, not any client's documents.
Number: 03
Scattered Financial Records,
Turned Into Sheets That Totaled Correctly
Private client. Named at no point, by agreement.
The Situation
A holder of a large and varied set of financial instruments had records spread across statements, notes and handwritten lists. Several denominations, several instrument types, no single view, and no way to arrive at a total anyone could stand behind.
What I Did
One sheet format covering every instrument type. Each holding transposed with its denomination, its count, and a reference back to the record it came from. Totals calculated by formula rather than by hand, so changing one line updates everything downstream and nothing has to be recomputed manually.
What Required the Most Care
The source material disagreed with itself. The same holding appeared twice with different counts; some entries had no source at all.
Where records conflicted, I recorded both figures and flagged the conflict. I did not pick one. That decision belonged to the client, who had context I didn't, and a total that quietly resolves its own contradictions is worse than useless — it looks authoritative and isn't.
The Result
A single set of sheets that totals correctly, updates when anything changes, and traces every figure back to its source — delivered with a written list of every discrepancy found, for the client to resolve.
Before and after. Illustrative — built from invented examples to show the form of the work, not any client's documents.
Number: 04
A Recorded Series,
Turned Into Working Reference Material
Private client. Named at no point, by agreement.
The Situation
A client had accumulated a long series of recorded sessions. The material was complete but unusable — hours of it, in order of recording, with no way to find anything, and nothing to work from between sessions. Knowing something had been said was no help without knowing where.
What I Did
A written index first: every session dated and numbered, each with its subject, the points covered, and the position in the recording where each begins. Then reference lists organized by theme rather than by date, so the same material could be approached either way.
Then the working material itself — summaries of what each session covered, prompts and reference sheets drawn from it, and short extracts cut from the recordings where a passage was returned to often. Designed to be used on their own, without having to go back to the source every time.
What Required the Most Care
An index of recorded material is only as good as its timings. A reference that lands thirty seconds late is worse than none at all, because it teaches the reader not to trust the index. Every entry was checked against the recording, not against my notes.
The written material had a different problem: it had to stay faithful to what was actually said. Summarizing is where things drift — a point gets tidier each time it's restated, and eventually it says something the recording doesn't. Every summary was traced back to its passage.
The Result
A series searchable by date, subject or theme, with any passage reachable in one step — and a set of reference materials that stands on its own, each piece traceable to the part of the record it came from.
Before and after. Illustrative — built from invented examples to show the form of the work, not any client's documents.
Number: 05
An Opportunity,
Set Out in Writing, and Pictured
Private client. Named at no point, by agreement.
The Situation
A client had an opportunity in front of her and couldn't decide about it. The problem wasn't information — she had that. It was that she couldn't picture herself in it. The version of the role she kept imagining was one she didn't want, and that image was doing more to shape the decision than any of the facts were.
What I Did
Two things, in that order.
First, the opportunity set out properly in writing: what it actually involved, what it would require of her, what it offered, and what it would cost her — arguments on both sides, laid out so they could be weighed against each other rather than argued in her head at three in the morning.
Then the visual work. The role rendered in a setting that suited her rather than the default one she'd been picturing — same work, same responsibility, a different room. Something she could look at instead of imagine.
What Required the Most Care
The written analysis had to be honest, and honest meant not selling it. A pros-and-cons list that leans is worse than none, because the reader senses the lean and stops trusting the whole document. The case against had to be made as well as the case for, and she had to be able to tell I'd tried on both.
The visuals had the opposite risk. Something too idealized would have been a fantasy, and she'd have known it. It had to be plausible — a version of the thing she could actually reach, not a picture of someone else's life.
The Result
She could see the opportunity two ways at once: argued out on paper, and pictured. She made the decision herself, on her own reasons, and went ahead with it.