Find the real cause. Make it right, and make it last.
I chase the root cause hard, refine the risk as the facts come in, and then resolve it in a way that survives turnover, procedural drift and time, without over-engineering it.
Radkeland, spelled out
Four letters, in the order an engagement actually runs.
Love
People do better work when they aren’t afraid. Root cause sessions without blame, every voice in the room, and training that respects how people actually learn.
Ask
What are you actually trying to do? Your goals come first: the deadline, the budget, the inspection, the buyer, and the honest version of what’s going on.
The first conversation is free, and there’s a scoped look before anyone commits to a big number.
Know
The system, the regulation and the real problem. The investigation goes past “human error” to the cause underneath, and the risk picture sharpens as the facts come in.
Fifteen years of stability and microbial failures on one product turned out to be pH drift. Once that was known, it could be solved.
Deliver
Durable first: built to keep working after the people who built it have moved on, me included. Then measurable. And no bigger than it needs to be: the smallest change that actually holds.
A 1,700-user system rebuilt so no single person is a point of failure. A trained successor who runs the function now.
Why the order matters
I’ve seen it so many times in quality systems: brilliant solutions to the wrong problem. Then they get stuck in procedures that never change, and quietly pile up, distracting the company from getting better.
That’s why understanding comes before action, and why the last step is making sure what we build can change when the business does.
What an engagement looks like
| Stage | What happens | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Love | I meet the people who run the function and hear how the work really happens | A team that’s in on the fix |
| Ask | Goals, constraints, budget and deadlines, in plain words | An agreed scope, with no surprises |
| Know | Following the evidence through the systems, the records and the floor until the cause and the risk are clear | The real problem, understood well enough to solve it right |
| Deliver | Make it right, write it down, train, hand off | A system your people run without me |
Billed for the hours actually worked, and never more than 40 in a week. How billing works →