Alan Conroy — Writing

Why I built this site

Mon, 20 Jul 2026 00:00:00 GMT

For years my presence online has been scattered: a profile here, a photo stream there, a professional network somewhere else. Each one owned by someone else, each one a fragment. This is my attempt to gather the threads in one place I actually control.

What this is

Three things, mostly.

First, a bit of writing — field notes from two decades in enterprise software, the occasional photo essay, and thoughts on running and life abroad. Nothing polished or promotional; just what I've learned and what I'm still figuring out.

Second, a quiet record of my work, for the handful of people who want to know what I actually do and whether I might help with theirs.

Third, a home for photographs I care about, pulled from an archive I've been building since 2005.

What it isn't

It isn't a marketing funnel, and I'm not trying to go viral. I've come to think the most valuable thing you can build online is a small, honest corner that's unmistakably yours. So that's the plan: write when I have something worth saying, share the good photographs, and let the rest take care of itself.

If any of that resonates, the writing is the best place to start.

What twenty years in ERP taught me about implementations that stick

Thu, 18 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I've been part of enough ERP implementations — as a founder, a consultant, and the person who gets called when things go sideways — to notice a pattern. The projects that last and the projects that quietly unravel almost never differ on the technology. They differ on a handful of unglamorous things nobody puts in the sales deck.

It's a people project wearing a software costume

The software is the easy part. The hard part is that an ERP system encodes how a business actually works — and most businesses don't fully agree on how they work until you make them write it down. Half of a good implementation is diplomacy: getting finance, operations and the warehouse to agree on a single version of the truth.

Clean data beats clever configuration

Every failed migration I've seen was, underneath, a data problem someone hoped would fix itself. It never does. The unglamorous work of cleaning, mapping and reconciling data before go-live is the single highest-leverage thing you can do. Budget for it generously; it will still take longer than you think.

Decide who owns it after go-live — before go-live

Systems don't fail on launch day. They fail six months later, when the person who understood the configuration has moved on and no one owns the thing anymore. Name that owner early, and give them time to actually learn the system while the consultants are still around.

Resist the urge to rebuild your old system

The most expensive words in any project are "but that's how our old system did it." A new ERP is a chance to drop the accumulated workarounds of a decade. Take it. Every bespoke customisation you add is a cost you'll pay again at every upgrade, forever.

None of this is exotic. But the projects that respect these four things tend to still be running happily years later — and the ones that don't tend to become the cautionary tale someone tells a consultant like me.

On long runs and long projects

Thu, 28 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

I picked up distance running late, and it has quietly reshaped how I approach my work. On paper the two have nothing in common. In practice, a marathon and a large software project are almost the same problem wearing different shoes.

The middle is where it's decided

Every marathon has a glamorous start and a triumphant finish, and a long, lonely stretch in between where the outcome is actually decided. Big projects are identical. The kickoff is exciting and the go-live gets the photos, but success is earned somewhere around the unglamorous middle, when the novelty has worn off and the work is just work.

Consistency beats heroics

You can't cram for a marathon, and you can't cram for a migration. Both reward the boring virtue of showing up and doing a sensible amount, repeatedly, for longer than feels interesting. The dramatic all-nighter is usually a sign that the consistent work didn't happen earlier.

Respect the wall, then keep moving

There's a point in every long race — and every long project — where it stops being fun and starts being a test of whether you'll keep putting one foot down. Knowing that moment is coming makes it survivable. You don't have to feel good; you just have to not stop.

I still run for the running, not the metaphors. But somewhere on a long Sunday out, more than one gnarly work problem has quietly untangled itself. That's a fair return on a pair of trainers.