About

Working in the messy middle

I’m Dave Chapman. I spend most of my time in the part of work where operations, software, and decision-making all collide. My background in business ownership and logistics taught me to look for risk, handoff failure, and unclear ownership before I reach for more technology. I’ve been frustrated by how often large organisations slow down their own change with red tape, process drag, and excessive justification for straightforward improvements. I like building systems that make messy work legible, more reliable, and easier to act on.

Bottleneck -> Boundary -> Build -> Measure

What I care about

Start with the work, not the tool

I tend to work from the operational problem outward: what is slow, expensive, fragile, or hard to trust?

I begin with the workflow itself, not a grand transformation narrative.
I look for where decision ownership breaks down, where risk is quietly absorbed by people, and where process drag is masking the real issue.
I prefer prototypes that show the real operating logic, including failure paths and review points, without requiring a mountain of justification to move forward.