Tag

FDE

Articles about "FDE"

13 articles

13 articles (showing 12)

FDEs and Business Ethnography | Turning What a Workplace Takes for Granted into Product
WARP

FDEs and Business Ethnography | Turning What a Workplace Takes for Granted into Product

Observation methods capture what people do. Ethnography captures why, in that group, it is taken for granted. The third article in our FDE practice series traces how an anthropological method reached corporate workplaces by way of Xerox PARC, explains Polanyi's tacit knowledge and Nonaka's socialization, shows how to write thick description, and lays out how ethnography differs from observation and why an FDE spends weeks on site. Contract-development business analysis targets "the process"; FDE ethnography targets "what this company takes for granted" and turns what it learns into standard product features. It also covers the time-boxing and deliverables that keep this from becoming live-in contract work.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto
Filming the Shop Floor and Analyzing It with AI | Consent, Camera Setup, and the Analysis Pattern
WARP

Filming the Shop Floor and Analyzing It with AI | Consent, Camera Setup, and the Analysis Pattern

Our engineers have started filming work on site, with permission, and analyzing the footage afterward with AI. Where observation means seeing things once, in the moment, video means seeing them again as many times as needed, and it captures what the eye cannot count well, such as the exact length of a wait or the number of screen switches. The fifth article in our FDE practice series covers how to obtain consent, the essentials of Japan's personal-data law and the camera-image guidebook, when to use a fixed camera versus screen recording, the boundary between what AI analyzes and what people keep, and how this differs from work analysis in contract engagements. FDE video analysis ends when the footage has become next week's working artifact.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto
FDEs and the KJ Method | Turning Field Fragments into Structure, and Where AI Stops
WARP

FDEs and the KJ Method | Turning Field Fragments into Structure, and Where AI Stops

The fragments collected through interviews, observation, and ethnography cannot be used for implementation as they are. To turn fragments into structure, our engineers use the thinking behind the KJ method, which the anthropologist Jiro Kawakita created for field research. The fourth article in our FDE practice series walks through the steps, one idea per card, gathering by meaning, diagramming, and writing up, using real field notes as material. It covers the boundary between what AI does and what people keep, how this differs from requirements consolidation in contract development, and how the structured result feeds the next week's implementation. The KJ method is a registered trademark of Kawakita Research Institute, which provides formal training.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto
An FDE's Week | From Code on Day One to Returning the Learning to the Product on Friday
WARP

An FDE's Week | From Code on Day One to Returning the Learning to the Product on Friday

When we say we can implement faster than anyone, the basis is not fast hands but the fact that the loop of asking, building, reading the reaction, and returning the learning to the product fits inside one week. The seventh article in our FDE practice series lays out that week concretely: Monday's diagnostic and first version, Tuesday to Thursday's observation and daily versions, Friday's KJ session, dictionary update, and pattern-or-branch decision, placing the six skills from the earlier articles into it. It also covers how the weeks stack inside a 45-to-90-day time box until the person on site edits the dictionary and we are no longer needed, how this differs from contract-development phases, and, honestly, what does not reach production in a week.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto
How an FDE Builds an Ontology from Field Notes | A Dictionary of Nouns and Verbs an AI Can Traverse
WARP

How an FDE Builds an Ontology from Field Notes | A Dictionary of Nouns and Verbs an AI Can Traverse

The dictionary of a company's nouns and verbs gathered through interviews, observation, ethnography, the KJ method, and video analysis is not usable by an AI agent as a dictionary. The sixth article in our FDE practice series explains how to extract five things from transcripts and observation records, nouns, verbs, relationships, states, and exceptions, and turn them into a structure of meaning an AI can traverse: an ontology. It covers the definition, why Palantir put it at the center of its product, its use in GraphRAG, the boundary between AI extraction and human meaning-making, and how it differs from data modeling in contract development. Putting ownership of the dictionary on the customer's side is the condition for the customer to run on their own.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto
How FDE Outcomes Are Measured and Contracted | Engineering Hours as Investment, Not Billing
WARP

How FDE Outcomes Are Measured and Contracted | Engineering Hours as Investment, Not Billing

An FDE's engineering hours are investment, not revenue. That claim only holds if outcomes are measured and contracts are structured differently from contract development. The ninth article in our FDE practice series covers measuring outcomes by the person's day rather than by technical metrics, the ratios that show whether hours per customer are falling, a contract built on a time box, outcome metrics, and exit conditions rather than fixed scope or billable hours, and where the learning belongs: patterns to the product, branches to the customer, dictionary contents to the customer. It draws on a16z, first-hand Palantir accounts, the AWS and FIS announcements, and the distinction between contract-for-work and quasi-mandate in Japanese civil law. This is the contractual line between a contractor who earns more the longer they stay and an FDE who creates more value the sooner they leave.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto
How to Develop FDEs | Training and Evaluation Through Which Engineers Learn Field Skills
WARP

How to Develop FDEs | Training and Evaluation Through Which Engineers Learn Field Skills

The final article in our FDE practice series is about developing FDEs. Coding is in the curriculum; asking, watching, being there, structuring, filming, and handing a dictionary to a machine are written down nowhere. Our engineers took external interview training before going on site and built their field skills through daily routines: working in pairs, the unease column, Friday groups, dictionary versions. Drawing on the books Palantir handed new hires, a16z's eight-week fellowship, and Nonaka's socialization, this article covers what training can teach, what only the field teaches, and an evaluation design based on patterns returned and declining on-site hours rather than billable utilization.

2026-09-15Ryuta Hamamoto