Digital Discovery - Housing & Development
Sector: Housing / Local Government
Role: Technical Consultant
Engagement Type: Discovery & Roadmap for Operational Systems
From spreadsheet sprawl and reporting risk to a clear, actionable roadmap - through business-led discovery and practical architecture.
The Challenge
The organisation had grown quickly, managing a mix of housing, commercial properties, and estates, but its day-to-day spreadsheets, manual handoffs, and disconnected tools held operations together. Reporting errors reached the board level, and staff spent increasing time firefighting issues caused by duplicated or inconsistent data.
With no internal IT or delivery function, the organisation needed help identifying the root causes of these growing pains and defining a realistic path to address them.
The Starting Point
- Manual processes for estate, rental, and property management
- Data duplicated across spreadsheets, departments, and shadow systems
- Reporting was error-prone, with inconsistencies surfacing in critical board-level outputs
- No dedicated IT function, changes were high-friction, and responsibilities were unclear
This wasn’t a tech-driven transformation - it was a business-led initiative triggered by real operational risk.
What I Did
Analysis & Technical Mapping
- Documented the as-is architecture and system sprawl
- Identified reporting gaps and duplicated efforts through MI and workflow analysis
- Defined a to-be architecture aligned with operational needs
- Created a pragmatic delivery roadmap with phased milestones and clear value points
Stakeholder Engagement
- Co-facilitated workshops and one-to-one interviews across the business
- Captured pain points and surfaced hidden dependencies in estate, rental, and operations management
- Created visuals to map shadow systems, data flows, and improvement opportunities
Roadmap & Next Steps
- Co-developed a set of quick wins and long-term enablers
- Authored a follow-up proposal to guide phased platform delivery
- Facilitated a domain-specific workshop (estate management) to ground system thinking in an operational context
What Changed
Clarity & Confidence
- Leadership gained a clear view of system risks and inefficiencies
- The roadmap provided a realistic path forward - no need to “boil the ocean”
Strategic Alignment
- Staff moved from “we know this isn’t working” to “we know what to do next”
- The engagement aligned operational and strategic goals through actionable system thinking
Follow-Through
- The follow-on proposal marked the beginning of a structured platform evolution
- The discovery phase created lasting internal language around systems, workflows, and priorities
Reflections
This wasn’t about picking systems - it was about untangling pain, clarifying priorities, and helping people see what’s possible. Good discovery grounds ambition in reality - and gives teams the confidence to move.
If you’re wrestling with spreadsheet sprawl, operational bottlenecks, or unclear system ownership - I can help.
Book a 20-minute discovery call