SHEET 01 · GROUND TRUTH· CORPORATE ENGAGEMENT
The process document
is not the process.
Your AI and automation are about to be configured against the documented version of how work runs. I map the version your people actually run and show you exactly what depends on that gap before you build over it.
G-01
THE GAP
Every organisation runs two versions of every process. The one in the document, and the one that ships the work.
The document holds actions and best-case sequence. The real process holds judgment: who to call before submitting, which field the legacy system needs even though the form doesn't ask for it, what the reviewer actually checks against, what to do when the client sends the missing information back as a photo of handwriting on a napkin.
Configuration teams build from the document, because the document is what they're given. The judgment layer isn't in it. Nobody notices until the new system is live and something that used to be quietly caught, quietly isn't.
Work as documented tells you what should happen. Work as done tells you what your automation is about to delete.
Detail G-01 · THE GAP IS THE DELIVERABLE
G-02
WHO'S HOLDING IT
The gap between the two versions isn't random. It's carried by people, in patterns that repeat across industries. Some of the roles I go in looking for:
GT-01
The Gatekeeper
Approves on relationship and mood, not the published criteria. The queue moves for people who know how to ask. The documented approval step is real - it just isn't how approval works.
GT-02
The Doer
The person everyone messages directly, because they turn a two-day process into two hours. Not in the flow diagram. Carrying half of it.
GT-03
Jack the Operator
Knows the undocumented step the legacy system needs. Doesn't mention it when asked - it stopped being knowledge years ago and became reflex. The new system won't know it either.
GT-04
The Interpreter
Takes the scan, the photo, the napkin, and turns messy outside input into something the internal process can accept. The reason "this can never be automated" gets said out loud.
GT-05
The Smoother
Translates a request into the language the other department needs to hear, so it goes through first time. The handoff works because of them, not because of the handoff.
COND
Wild Input
Not a person — a condition. The edge where your process meets a world that won't fill in the form. It's what creates the Interpreter, and it doesn't go away when the tool changes.
None of this is in the process document. All of it is load-bearing. When a new system is configured from the document alone, this is what gets built out.
Detail G-02 · From the internal hunt sheet
G-03
WHAT YOU GET
The unit of a Ground Truth report is a finding: one place where the documented process and the real one diverge, and what depends on that divergence. One finding per page. Every finding carries:
FINDING · FIELD SCHEMA
01
What the process says — the documented version, as written.
02
What actually happens — the version your people run, evidenced.
03
Who's carrying it — by role. Never by name.
04
Loud or silent — whether failure would announce itself, or pass quality review clean.
05
What the incoming system does to it — preserved, broken, or deleted as configured
06
Rebuild judgement — rebuild, partial, or accept the loss. One line. A decision, not a hedge.
07
What has to exist for the rebuild to work — the specific artefacts: the contact list, the logging field, the contingency. A shopping list, not a sentiment.
08
Evidence — who said it, what corroborated it, what contradicted it.
The report closes with the shortlist of the three or four findings sitting directly under your planned change. Each one is preserved in the new design, or someone senior decides, on record, to lose it.
G-04
THE METHOD
01
Walkthroughs, not workshops
I sit with the people who do the work and walk specific recent cases. "The last time you did this" not remembered averages, not the sanctioned version, not a room full of managers describing other people's jobs.
02
Multi-role validation
One person's account of everyone else's work is exactly the problem I'm here to fix. Distributed processes get three to five role perspectives, cross-checked against each other and the documentation.
03
Evidence, not opinion
Every finding names its corroboration. What one person said, what a second confirmed, what the document contradicted. Anything unresolved ships as a structured open question, not a guess.
Sanitised throughout. Findings are attributed to roles, never to names. No employee is named in a session, a report, or anywhere else. People tell me the real version because they can.
G-05
FROM THE FIELD
Field Record · 2026
The method was built on two live processes in unrelated domains: a land-use permitting operation in northern Canada, and an executive recruitment process inside a large US enterprise.
Different work, different countries, different systems arriving. Both produced structurally identical artefacts - a map, a set of evidenced findings, and a short list of what the incoming system would have silently removed. In the recruitment case, seven of twelve findings sat directly under the three systems being implemented. In the permitting case, the process turned out to run on tacit rules held by staff approaching retirement, with no handover planned. Neither appeared in the documentation.
TWO FIELD ENGAGEMENTS · PERMITTING, CANADA · ENTERPRISE RECRUITMENT, USA
G-06
ENGAGEMENT
Every engagement starts with three questions: who touches this process end to end, what decision is it feeding right now, and what documentation exists, and where did it come from. Your answers determine the scope.
I diagnose, then prescribe.
Engagements are quoted in full, in two phases, with a sufficiency review at the end of Phase 1. If Phase 1 answered the question, we close there - at 40% of the quoted fee. You only run Phase 2 if the process genuinely needs it.
CORPORATE GROUND TRUTH
Corporate Ground Truth engagements begin at £18,000. Scope is determined by process distribution, decision criticality, and the evidence required. Engagements tied to a live AI or automation decision are scoped against the cost of getting that decision wrong.
From $24,000
£18,000
Before the configuration workshop
If a new system, an AI tool, or an automation programme is about to be configured against your documented processes, the time to find out what the documents are missing is now, not in the post-launch review.
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