{
  "$schema": "https://peakstate.global/sourced/v1.schema.json",
  "sourced": "1.0",
  "artefact": {
    "path": "src/content/posts/hard-things-easy.md",
    "slug": "hard-things-easy",
    "title": "Hard things are now easy",
    "sha256": "e1b0f92de2f72ffa316789adde72ed3ebc59667812cd756099783e64621ef8f1",
    "producedAt": "2026-08-26"
  },
  "claims": [
    {
      "id": "c1",
      "statement": "A large class of knowledge work that used to be hard has been repriced: a competent first draft of an analysis, code, copy, a contract, a curriculum or a campaign has gone from days of skilled labour to seconds of machine time.",
      "status": "recalled",
      "locator": {
        "section": "opening",
        "paragraph": 4
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "No benchmark was retrieved this session. The days-to-seconds range is an illustration of a shift Andrew observes in practice, not a measured figure."
    },
    {
      "id": "c2",
      "statement": "In strategy sessions across government, banking and the ASX 200, AI is normally treated as a line item — an efficiency programme, a risk register entry, a slide near the end — rather than as a challenge to the strategy itself.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "opening",
        "paragraphs": "1-2"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "First-person observation from Andrew's own client work. The sessions are confidential, so they cannot be named or counted."
    },
    {
      "id": "c3",
      "statement": "Strategy is a set of assumptions about difficulty, so when difficulty is repriced the strategy standing on it changes whether or not the document says so.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "opening",
        "paragraph": 3
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Andrew's framing, not a finding from literature."
    },
    {
      "id": "c4",
      "statement": "A methodology moat narrows when a capable model and a good practitioner can approximate much of the methodology in weeks; what stays defensible is relationships, judgement under ambiguity and accountability.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "Which of your assumptions have quietly stopped being true?",
        "item": "Moats made of accumulated expertise"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Reasoning, not a measured case. The twenty-year firm and the weeks-to-approximate window are illustrative."
    },
    {
      "id": "c5",
      "statement": "The talent pyramid is also the training system, so automating junior groundwork while assuming a continuing supply of seasoned judgement is a contradiction with a long delay before it shows.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "Which of your assumptions have quietly stopped being true?",
        "item": "The talent pyramid"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Causal argument by Andrew. The ten-year fuse is a figure of speech, not a projection."
    },
    {
      "id": "c6",
      "statement": "Validate-before-you-build and fail-fast were rationing rules for expensive construction; when building is cheap the scarce resources become attention, distribution and problem selection.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "Which of your assumptions have quietly stopped being true?",
        "item": "Validate before you build"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Andrew's reading of product strategy history, not a cited account of it."
    },
    {
      "id": "c7",
      "statement": "Agile ceremony was an adaptation to slow, costly implementation; when implementation is fast the bottleneck moves upstream to deciding what to build.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "Which of your assumptions have quietly stopped being true?",
        "item": "Agile ceremony"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Interpretation of Agile's origins. No primary source on the Agile Manifesto or its intent was retrieved."
    },
    {
      "id": "c8",
      "statement": "A team of five with agents can outperform a team of fifty without, which breaks the assumption that output scales with headcount and undermines status structures built on span of control.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "Which of your assumptions have quietly stopped being true?",
        "item": "Headcount as the measure of capacity and status"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "The five-versus-fifty comparison is illustrative. No study or case was retrieved to support the ratio."
    },
    {
      "id": "c9",
      "statement": "The interval competitors need to observe, decide and copy a move is set by how hard copying is, and it is collapsing, so anything visible and automatable will be copied faster than planning cycles assume.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "Which of your assumptions have quietly stopped being true?",
        "item": "The grace period before competitors respond"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Andrew's assessment. No market data on response times was retrieved."
    },
    {
      "id": "c10",
      "statement": "Trust, institutional permission, distribution, accountability, taste and problem selection, and coherent execution across many humans and agents remain hard.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "What is still hard?"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "A judgement about the present. Any item on the list could move."
    },
    {
      "id": "c11",
      "statement": "A difficulty audit of a strategy typically produces three lists: assumptions that survive, assumptions that fail, and previously-too-hard opportunities that are now available and unclaimed.",
      "status": "inferred",
      "locator": {
        "section": "So what does a leadership team actually do with this?"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Reported from Andrew's own facilitation, and stated in the article as his experience. Not a counted result across engagements."
    },
    {
      "id": "c12",
      "statement": "2023 is a usable marker for when general-purpose AI tools reached most organisations, so 'was this priced before 2023?' is a fair test of an assumption's age.",
      "status": "recalled",
      "locator": {
        "section": "So what does a leadership team actually do with this?"
      },
      "evidence": [],
      "note": "Adoption timing was not retrieved this session. Used as a rough marker, not a measured threshold."
    }
  ],
  "evidence": [],
  "disclosure": {
    "attribution": "Written by Andrew Ramsden. AI tools assisted research and drafting; all outputs verified.",
    "accountable": "Andrew Ramsden.",
    "limitations": "No external sources.",
    "references": "No external sources. Claim labels are in the [SOURCED sidecar](/sourced/hard-things-easy.sourced.json)."
  }
}