The method
How I make a programme succeed
Every engagement follows the same four moves, working alongside your team at each step. The aim is a result you can both stand behind, and a team that is stronger for having done it.
Understand the As-Is
Good architecture starts with a clear, shared picture. Together we map your current landscape — what is built, what is integrated, what has been decided — into a single reference your team keeps using long after the engagement ends.
Design the To-Be
From there we shape an architecture that fits your budget, your data, your people and the way your organisation actually works. The diagrams are explicit, the trade-offs are stated openly, and the plan is one your board can get behind.
Upskill the team
Through frameworks, mentoring, paired delivery and architecture reviews, your consultants and partners build a real understanding of the reasoning behind each design choice. When the engagement ends, the capability stays with you.
Deliver to production
I stay close to delivery — working through integration questions, refining documentation, and being there for the harder decisions — so the team reaches production with confidence and a result everyone is proud of.
Areas
Areas of Focus
Four areas of specialism, each backed by years of hands-on delivery for Microsoft and enterprise customers.
Contact Center as a Service
Designing and delivering Microsoft Dynamics 365 Contact Center solutions for national and worldwide deployments — bringing voice, digital channels, AI agents, telephony, reporting, and operations together into a platform your teams can confidently run and grow.
Dynamics 365
Supporting Customer Service, Sales, Marketing, Field Service, and Project Operations (Lite). Architecting and delivering complete solutions, with thoughtful integration across Power Platform, Azure, and the wider Microsoft ecosystem.
Agentic AI
Bringing agentic AI to life on the Microsoft stack — Azure AI Foundry, the Microsoft Agent Framework, Copilot Studio, and tailored orchestration. Working alongside your team to design and deliver solutions that create real, measurable value.
Self Evolving Agents
Pioneering work on self-evolving multi-agent systems, anchored by Project EVE. A natural fit for founders and AI scale-ups exploring the next wave — agents that learn, adapt, and grow more capable over time.
PUBLICATIONS
View Hugo's Published Work
Two editions of the standard reference for Microsoft Power Platform solution architects. Available from Amazon, Packt, and other major book retailers.
Microsoft Power Platform Solutions Architect's Handbook 2nd Edition
The 2025 second edition. A practical guide to architecting Power Platform solutions for the enterprise — design patterns, ALM, integration, governance, and how Power Platform sits alongside Azure and Dynamics 365. Updated throughout with new chapters on Copilot, Power Pages, and the latest Dataverse capabilities.
Microsoft Power Platform Solution Architect's Handbook
The original 2022 edition. Widely used by Microsoft consultancies and enterprise teams as a reference for the PL-600 solution architect certification and as a practical playbook for live programmes.
Recent Insights
Twenty-two seconds to rescue a project – the four moves
Most failing projects are not failing because of bad people. They are failing because nobody stopped to map where they are against where they need to be. Here is the recovery I run.
Requirements engineering: solving the real problem, not the one you were handed
Every requirement arrives wearing a disguise: someone has already turned a need into a feature and handed you the feature. The job of requirements engineering is to find the real need underneath. Here is how.
You can’t design the To-Be until you understand the As-Is
Designing the target architecture before you genuinely understand the current one is how programmes build something elegant that doesn’t fit. The As-Is is not a history lesson; it is the directive for everything that follows.