Ironstone Methods

A practical system for transforming companies.

The diagram is not the method. The workshop is not the method. The clever name is definitely not the method. A method is a repeatable way to get somewhere useful.

Ironstone Methods were created in real work with founders, executives, software teams, investors and institutions. Together, they open new possibilities, expose weak assumptions, reveal how a market works, reconnect strategy to business fundamentals, turn decisions into experiments and make what the organization learns usable again.

The sequence tells a story, but it is not a conveyor belt. Use one method. Combine several. Move backward when the evidence changes. The purpose is to leave the company more coherent, more capable and better able to act.

1. Initiate the transformation

The Ironstone Creation Model

Creation begins before analysis. It begins when an idea, question, pressure or possibility enters the system.

The Creation Model is the initiating method behind this collection. It describes how Rob creates and innovates, and how Ironstone turns that work into action. We ideate, think, make, do, judge, decide, execute and archive. The movement is recursive, not linear. New evidence may send the work backward, sideways or around again. Fans, skeptics and regulation or law act on the work from outside it.

Today, the model helps identify which creative and execution energies are present, which are missing and what must happen next. It will evolve into the full Ironstone consulting methodology: a repeatable way to enter a complex situation, create useful change and leave behind knowledge that can be used again.

Status: working model; the broader consulting methodology is evolving.

2. Diagnose reality

A company cannot change until it can see what it is actually dealing with.

Ironstone Critical Thinking Cube

A difficult question has more than one face. The Critical Thinking Cube helps us turn the question, change the point of view and examine the answer before we become attached to it. It is used for critical thinking, decision-making and problem-solving when the first answer is probably too easy.

Status: summary available; detailed guide in preparation.

The Bullshit Compass

Some language is wrong. Some is copied. Some is technically correct and almost entirely empty.

The Bullshit Compass is the umbrella method. Fingerprint Spider traces patterns, reuse and textual lineage. The Bullshit Index examines tautology, ambiguity, jargon, semantic drift, emotional persuasion and other signals of language that has become detached from meaning. Both began as RFCs. Meaning first. Specification first. Code after the idea can survive criticism.

Status: RFC-based method; public guide in preparation.

3. Understand the market

Ironstone Market Map Method

A market map is not a company list. It is a working model of how a market can actually be entered.

The method moves through Market Mapping, Owned-Media Mining, External Enrichment, Demand Mapping and Account Penetration Planning. It follows manufacturers, parent companies, brands, direct sellers, distributors, dealers, installers, retailers, adjacent categories and the media or influencers that shape demand.

For every priority account, it asks who matters, where the Economic Control Point sits, what Trigger Event creates movement, how long the decision takes, whether local capacity can convert demand and which Campaign Motion can work. It optimizes for account penetrability, not merely an email address.

The final question is always useful: what did we learn about how this market works that was not obvious at the beginning?

Status: summary available; detailed guide in preparation.

4. Make the business coherent

BoB, the Boring Old Business Plan

The old business plan became a monster. Hundreds of pages, months of work and not much help on Monday morning.

BoB goes back to the useful version: a five-page plan and a three-sheet model. Mission, product, customer benefit, operating choices and financial reality have to fit together. We can then add dynamics where a static spreadsheet stops explaining the business.

It is boring in the same way foundations are boring. You notice when they are missing.

Status: summary available; detailed guide in preparation.

Startup Pitch Canvas and Evidence Ladder

A pitch is a connected set of claims about a business. If the claims do not connect, the story does not become true because the slides look good.

The 13-block Startup Pitch Canvas connects the problem, customer, solution, market, route to market, advantage, economics, uncertainty, execution and ask. Every block carries four questions: what is the claim, what evidence supports it, what could make it wrong and how confident should we be?

The Evidence Ladder runs from E0, assertion, to E4, repeated result. Confidence cannot be higher than the evidence. That rule does a lot of work.

Status: summary available; detailed guide in preparation.

5. Turn decisions into change

Agile Experimentation Method

When a claim matters and the evidence is weak, stop polishing the argument. Design an experiment. Form the hypothesis. Plan the smallest useful test. Build the prototype, agent, dataset, benchmark or proof of concept. Measure what happened. Then persevere, pivot or abandon the idea.

The purpose of the experiment is not to prove that the team was right. It is to leave the team less wrong.

Read the Agile Experimentation Method

NFR Patterns and the Abilities

Software can perform its main function and still be dreadful software.

The NFR Patterns and the Abilities ask the questions that feature lists miss. Can people understand it? Can we observe it? Can it be tested, extended, integrated, transformed and repaired? Can the datastore or language model be replaced? Can knowledge be found and shared?

These are patterns for how we build and how we work. The collection stays alive because the systems around it keep changing.

Explore NFR patterns and abilities

6. Make the capability last

NeoCRM

Traditional CRM starts with records, fields, forms and screens. NeoCRM starts with people, relationships, goals, context and time.

It is a method and reference architecture for building agent-native CRM tools. The semantic model belongs to NeoCRM. Storage remains replaceable. Facts remain distinguishable from observations, hypotheses and recommendations. Agents work within explicit authority, provenance and human accountability.

Status: active experiment and reference architecture, not a complete production system.

NeoLibrary

Most organizations have more documents than memory.

The NeoLibrary Method turns an archive into working knowledge. Material is captured, indexed, linked and cross-linked. New comparisons, analyses and working documents are made from what is already there. The human cycle is study, synthesis, ideation, making, deciding and executing.

The method works now. The agentic system is at design intent, with a first version being built in the Ironstone xLab.

Read about NeoLibrary

Three rules behind the methods

If strangers can see it, it is production.

Entropy is a diagnostic, not an excuse.

Simplicity is clarity earned, not convenience taken.

The work should explain itself to the people who have to live with it.

Which method do you need?

You do not need to know. Start with the question that is hard to explain, the decision that will not settle, the idea that needs evidence or the system that no longer makes sense. We can choose the method from there.

Book a 30-minute conversation or contact Rob.

Some guides are still being prepared. Read why we make the wait useful.

How our four practices connect