For larger organisations
Give the new idea a small room of its own.
We bring the way startups work to organisations of any size: try it small, and keep what works.
It’s the same three steps we take with small firms. In a large organisation the middle one has an old name: a skunkworks.
Untangle.
Step 1 · First, the wiring
Draw how a decision really gets made.
We map the route a decision actually takes with the teams who do the work: who it waits for, and where it stops. Then a written plan: the jobs AI should do, who checks each one, the ones that stay human, and which AI tools staff may use.
Read The Decision Path, a guide to mapping the route a decision takesExperiment.
Step 2 · The skunkworks
A small team, kept apart, with one name on the door.
A skunkworks is a small, protected group that builds something new while everyone else keeps the business running. It gets its own space, its own kit and its own budget line, and one executive who answers for it.
The protocol sets a 30-day rule for putting the first working prototype in front of a real customer.
Read the Skunkworks Protocol, the rules for running the small teamBuild.
Step 3 · Bring back what worked
Only what worked comes back into the building.
The trial that worked goes into the main business for real, with its sponsor, and a named person checks each job AI does. You can see what it did, and undo it. What didn’t work stays in the bin, where it cost little.
Working inside a large organisation
Where you have a CTO, we work to them, not over them.
For larger organisations, from £1,500 a month, excluding VAT.
Your paperwork
We don’t pitch, but we’ll happily sit your supplier due diligence, your insurance checks and your security questionnaire.
Specialists, by name
When a job needs a specialist, we bring one in by name, on our paper, under our insurance.
A bigger team
When you need more than Dave, we build a team for your needs from partners we have worked closely with.
The record
Twelve teams, one shared set of parts.
- 75%fewer rounds of back and forth before a plan was agreed, by their own count. Twelve teams in one large IT firm had all been solving the same problem separately.
- 6 monthsfor work their own estimate said would take two years. The fix was dull: one shared set of parts that every team built from.
“David actually listens, which already puts him ahead of most people in enterprise AI. He gets what it really is too, not the conference nonsense, but the reality.”
Twenty-five years designing things people use
From Ordnance Survey to startups finding their feet.
- UnisysProduct experience architect, AI and emerging solutions, since 2023
- Ordnance SurveyLegacy systems to open source, in-house team trained
- MatterCofounder and head of product
- TablInterim CTO, then chief experience officer
- The Food CorporationHead of service design
Talk to Dave
Tell us three jobs that keep getting stuck.
Confidential. No sales theatre. The reply costs nothing and comes from Dave.