The Ground

Note from the lab on where co-founders meet. Ground where teams meet.

See also:

• The Grωnd
• Contact to learn more how ground works for you

How to identify real square wheels projects and need to blueprint, part 1

That’s how every engineering optimization project could be described. On the left you have a square wheel, on the right - a new round one. The first dimension is always clear.

Chart 1. Point on this line depicts level of automation of a single step in a process

At the next glance the road from manual to auto has two key areas. Automation takes time subtracting attention from a market discovery. Yet, once you pass the alley of process discovery - you are getting competitive advantage in reduced labor pressure.

Chart 2. Red line shows pressure of manual execution, green line - automated to a point.

Let’s check chart 3 of a segment of a process. Area (I) shows distraction surface, followed by (II) shorter cycles giving competitive advantage. If automation lives a long life and widely replaces existing processes: (II) - (I) much more than nothing. Otherwise, a team ends with the negative (I).

Chart 3. I - area of effort to automate a step, II - area of competitive advantage

See also

12 angles to improve your velocity with blueprints

Crypto perspective

Could quantum computers be decentralized?

Practical perspective on quantum computer with 500,000 qubits [1] breaking codes faster than crypto-ecosystem could process [within next 5 years].

Observation 1. Technical. Bitcoin did manage to upgrade complexity challenge as underlying hardware was upgraded from CPU to GPU, to FPGA, and then to ASICs. Likely there is someone out there who is figuring out how to get them this quantum machine right now. After all, transaction fees are still there.

Observation 2. Commercial. Typically when you are building business - you are creating a "monopoly" for certain things through public protections: like logos, trademarks, name of the company, and private ones: like customer list, customer relations, know-how, code.

Observation 3. Crypto. Bitcoin model is de-facto F1 competition between computers and algorithms on them. Hence, the one who got ahead - gets the prize - fees, and control.

Synthesis. The one who gets the prize, generally speaking, can come from anywhere. No need to prove to your customers, no track record. "Just" showing the best engine.

Conclusion. That is concerning, and quite atypical to build business in banking sphere on constant assumption to be the best in math, engineering and with best pilot ever _all_ the time.

[1] - Safeguarding cryptocurrency by disclosing quantum vulnerabilities responsibly, March 31, 2026
[PS] - List of Formula One Grand Prix winners for past 76 years

Strategy of change, 2026

 

It briefs problems, solutions and provides a case study.

This deck comes as pdf. Due to limitations of blogger. Link to the full deck (LinkedIn post).

See also

• Zero-time provisioning
• Own your SaaS: 12 angles to improve your velocity with a SaaS blueprint

Invariant of an artisan

 

Signature is still by an artisan, a person who still needs to keep up

AI to software engineering upgrade is like an excavator to earth diggers. With all leverage it gives, AI does not replace judgement, skill and understanding.

Invariant is bulletproof, and full of parallels.

Even if AI could do 90% of code creation (10x), and even 99% in 2-5 years (100x) there is still remaining 1-10% which require understanding by a human. By a person who need to make adjustments coaligned with first 90-99%*. Artisan who needs to put their signature still needs to get trained how to operate technology and support underlying business.

Engineering-wise cycle is somewhat similar to adjusting IC productivity when it was on the way from assembler to C, from C++ to Java/Go/Python etc., from JS to React or similar.

One thing this cycle brings - high pressure to maintain operational IP as code. To have it blueprinted into operations. This creates sound opportunity to prioritize platform, DevOps and infrastructure.

* - these are optimistic, but possible stretch goals.

Operational IP - the ninety target

The ninety target

Applications are the code. There is no other way to compile/interpret them. It is a must. The way how they operate – operational IP – historically not.

That’s Jon who deploys, and Susan who knows when to reboot it, and Joan who designs upgrades, and Jim who does security patches, and Ingrid who is on systems, and Matt who updated configuration yesterday, and Dana who keeps the database up, and Ravi who keeps firewalls protected, and James who makes sure systems keep up with the load, and Kaya who know how orchestrate all these together.

Does your SaaS work 24/7 (most do)? – that’s 5-6 times more people per application group. To handle three shifts and 21 shift x days with time to teach, learn, replenish and stay human.

How far your cloud strategy from protecting >90% of your operational IP?

Contact for the gap analysis

Gap analysis

Countdown to legacy. Source images credit: nano banana

Most companies don't have a countdown clock which toward the end switches to hieroglyphics, sounds alarm and gradually causes earth tremors. Legacy software process just gets obsolete one day.

Modern software technology operations go beyond code itself. Operational IP is a complex system: including SDLC decisions, data, configuration management and pipelines.

AI/LLM-tools application may vary for some time, but as always - you can't automate what was not written down. Which is easier to say than to get to the mark.

[1] - Ask about your “five nines” gap analysis for your service (SaaS)
[2] - Own your SaaS: 12 angles to improve your velocity with blueprints