Case 05
[CASE TITLE — capture the situation, not just the work. e.g. "Rebuilding a CMDB after the second failed Discovery rollout."] [Optional italic accent phrase.]
[ONE-PARAGRAPH LEAD — capture the situation, the constraint, and the bet you made. Two or three sentences. This is what someone reads to decide whether to keep going.]
[SITUATION — paragraph 1. What was broken, who came to you, what they thought the problem was. Write it like you're describing the project to another senior architect over coffee. Resist the temptation to be vague.]
[SITUATION — paragraph 2. The state of the platform/team/business when you walked in. Why the project existed. What was at stake. Keep it concrete.]
The build
[WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DID — paragraph 1. The technical work. CMDB class model? Process design? Integrations? Custom apps? Be specific about what you built with your hands, not what the team built around you.]
[WHAT YOU ACTUALLY DID — paragraph 2. More technical depth if needed. Or move to the second hand of the work — what you designed vs. what you delegated. The point of this beat is to show technical depth without bragging.]
The pushback
[THE HARDEST CALL — paragraph 1. Where did you have to push back on something? Against scope, against customisation pressure, against an unrealistic timeline, against the partner, against a stakeholder. Frame it as the architectural argument you had to win.]
[THE HARDEST CALL — paragraph 2. How you won the argument, and what it bought the project. This is where senior judgment shows up most clearly.]
[OPTIONAL: A THIRD BEAT — e.g. "The harder work was operational" / "The team transformation" / "What survived after I left"]
[Use this beat if there's a non-technical angle that mattered: change management, organisational redesign, governance, knowledge transfer. If the case is purely technical, delete this whole h2 + paragraphs section.]
[Continue if needed. Keep the beat to two paragraphs max.]
What changed
[OUTCOMES — paragraph 1. Lead with the concrete change, not the platitude. "MTTR dropped to between two and four hours" beats "improved efficiency." If you have numbers, use them. If you don't, write the qualitative outcome with specifics.]
[OUTCOMES — paragraph 2. The durable impact. What's still true today that wasn't before. The closing line should be quietly memorable — not a brag, but a confident summary of what the work bought the organisation.]