No form. Write to me directly.

What to include so the first reply is useful.

You don't need a specification. Four things are enough for me to say something worth reading.

• What the business does

  And who uses the software: customers, staff, suppliers, or all three. The users decide more about the architecture than the feature list does.

• What you're trying to change

  A product to build, a system that has become hard to change, manual work draining margin, or a team that needs to level up.

• What already exists

  Nothing yet, something live, or something you inherited. This changes the answer more than anything else you can tell me.

• Anything already fixed

  A market, a payment or delivery provider you must integrate, a system that has to keep running, a date that matters. Constraints narrow the design.

What happens after you send it.

The message arrives with me. There is no intake form and no one triaging it on my behalf. My first reply is normally questions rather than a proposal, because a proposal written before those answers is a guess with a price on it. Once they're answered I'll set out what the work is, which engagement model fits, and what the first deliverable looks like. If it isn't a fit, I'll say so plainly. If something is time-critical, put that in the first line and I'll treat it that way.

Not every email has to be a project.

An architecture review before a decision that would be hard to undo, a second opinion on someone else's plan, a question about whether a system is worth modernizing or replacing, or training for engineers you already employ. All engagements in their own right.

• Start a project
• Ask a question
• Ask about an architecture review
• Ask about team training

Where to write.

The address is on every button on this page, and it's the same one that reaches me anywhere else. If your mail client doesn't open, copy it: [email protected]