I’ve always been drawn to the small details that seem unrelated until they change the larger picture—and to the way people can give the same information a different meaning.
After becoming a stay-at-home mom, I spent much of my free time learning new tools and thinking back on the pain points I had accepted as part of the job in earlier roles. Time and change have a way of shifting your perspective. I kept coming back to how difficult it could be to trace a request: who contributed, who had influence, who could approve it, and who was expected to act.
An org chart is excellent at showing who reports to whom. It is not always as good at showing who actually has influence.
That became one starting point for these projects: use records and technical tools to make the connections easier to follow, while leaving room for the part no system can fully explain—the people involved.