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Paul Bratcher

Senior technology and transformation leader with over twenty years in board-level roles at Howdens Joinery, Rexel UK, Travis Perkins, and Screwfix. Paul has led AI initiatives at board level since 2019, currently shaping business cases, developing AI-enabled solutions, and keeping people and culture at the centre of change.

Insights by Paul

Building Claude Code Skills: What I Have Learned So Far

In my last newsletter, I shared Career Helper, a Claude skill for job seekers. I mentioned I'd follow up with what I've learned from building 50+ skills. This is that follow-up. I've been building with Claude Code since its launch in February 2025. When Anthropic formalised the skills feature in…

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Giving Back: A Claude Skill for Job Seekers

I don't know why, but January is often a forced career transition moment, so it seems now is a good time to subvert the newsletter to talk about this Claude skill. It's a pretty useful demonstration of what you can do with a skill, making use of all sorts of techniques. Next newsletter, I will…

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Better ChatGPT 5.1 Prompt Writing

All of the Major providers have cook books, or prompt writing guides. With the release of chatGPT 5.1 there are a few changes you can make to when you are creating prompts to get better results out of it. I know this looks a little alien, and is a bit more effort. Do I use these approaches all of…

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When Max Met Aisha

In October 2025, Channel 4 aired a documentary about AI and employment. The presenter, Aisha Gaban, delivered her lines with the slightly stilted cadence you expect from documentary narration. She looked professional. She sounded credible. And at the end of the programme, she revealed something…

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The Pilot Trap: Why Your Next Innovation Will Be a Nightmare

And How to Save It Let us begin with a difficult truth. That new pilot you are about to kick off, the one being championed internally as the next major leap in transformation, is more likely to stall than succeed. This will not be because of bad code, immature algorithms or even external market…

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The Board's Dilemma: Navigating 5 Forces Reshaping the Future of Work

Smart, experienced leaders are sitting around polished tables, surrounded by reports that would make a data analyst weep with joy, yet they're more uncertain than I've seen them in years. Why? Because we're navigating something genuinely unprecedented. Five generations working together. Digital…

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Understanding Competence, and why it matters

Introduction: Why Competence Matters More Than Curiosity The growing presence of generative AI tools like ChatGPT in the workplace has sparked a wave of experimentation. Business users are drafting emails, summarising documents, generating product ideas, and even scripting client communications,…

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Old Rules for New Tools: Engineering Principles That Make Agents Work

We are rushing to a development pattern where multi-agent systems, collections of autonomous yet collaborating AI entities, are becoming increasingly critical to business operations. As organisations race to implement these powerful new tools, the question facing CTOs and engineering leaders is…

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Reimagining Software Delivery: One Human, Many AI Agents

Introduction: A Vision of Future Development The intersection of software development and AI agents presents an area ripe for exploration and innovation. Traditional governance practices, often designed for human-centric workflows, demand reimagining in an era where AI teams can handle operational…

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Implementing AI Agents? Your Business May Already Know How

A Pattern-Based Approach While organisations rush to implement AI agents, they're overlooking something crucial: the patterns for successful AI agent implementation already exist in their businesses. After working through numerous AI agent developments, I've noticed a striking insight - we're…

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