Library
of working notes.
This is where the practice writes things down. Long-form articles on the questions that come up most - drainage diagnosis, KPI design, insourcing maths, levels-of-service frameworks. The point isn’t to be exhaustive - it’s to be useful.
How to know if your sports field drainage is actually failing - or just having a bad winter.
Most underperforming fields aren’t a drainage problem. The diagnostic mistakes that lead councils to spend six-figure sums on capital works that don’t fix the issue - and what to look for instead before signing the renovation contract.
Read the article- The five common failure modes
- What soil profile testing actually tells you
- When the answer is contractor practice, not capital
- A simple weekend-after-rain check
What a parks maintenance contract KPI structure should actually look like.
Most parks contracts measure the wrong things - frequency of mow, quantity of weed-spray, hours of labour. The contractor delivers the inputs, the field still doesn’t perform, and the parks manager has nothing to point at when council asks why. A different way to write KPIs.
Read the article- Outcome-based vs activity-based KPIs
- The four KPI categories that matter
- How to weight them without gaming
- What a one-page KPI dashboard looks like
Levels-of-service frameworks: why most amenity contracts have inherited the wrong ones.
“All amenity plantings shall be maintained to a high standard” is in half the parks contracts in the country. It’s not a service level - it’s a sentence that protects the contract drafter and dooms the contractor. A practical alternative that matches budget reality.
Read the article- Why “high standard” is meaningless
- A four-tier LoS framework, with examples
- How to align LoS with the AMP
- The conversation to have with elected members
New articles, quietly delivered.
One email when a new article goes up - usually monthly, sometimes less, never more. No marketing, no roundups, no “10 things you didn’t know about parks contracts.” Just the article.
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