Approach
One problem. Six weeks. Then it ends.
Enterprise development organizations rarely have a tooling problem. They have a delivery model built for a way of working that has quietly stopped matching how the work gets done — and no agreed version of which part to fix first.
Six things we hold to
These are not values on a wall. Each one changes what we do in a specific, sometimes uncomfortable way.
Evidence before opinion
What your teams are actually doing and what leadership believes they are doing are two different data sets. We go and look at the first one. Every finding is traceable to an artefact, a delivery record, or an interview we can name.
One problem at a time
A transformation program is a way of never having to be wrong about anything in particular. We pick the single problem with the highest cost of being left alone, and we fund six weeks against it.
Fixed appetite, variable scope
The shape is borrowed from Shape Up. The deadline is real and does not move; the scope flexes to fit it. Work expands to fill the time available, so we fix the time first and make scope do the adapting.
The capability stays
We work alongside your teams rather than beside them. Whatever we build — a workflow, a commitment model, a decision path — is documented, demonstrated, and owned by someone with a name before we go.
Same story in every room
The version the sponsor hears is the version the team hears. Organizations lose years slowly when the reporting layer smooths the news on its way up, and we would rather lose the engagement than participate in that.
Designed to end
Most consulting engagements are designed to continue. The measure of this one is what holds after we leave — and the normal ending is that it closes and you have your budget and your people back.
How an engagement runs
Three steps, escalating on purpose. Each is designed to stand on its own — you can stop after any of them, and plenty of clients should.
The First Conversation
45 minutes · Free · No deck
A working session, not a sales call. Bring the problem you would describe to a peer over coffee — the thing your teams keep tripping over, the pilot that stalled, the delivery metrics that stopped meaning anything.
The question we are both answering is whether this is a real problem, and whether we are the right people for it. Roughly as often as not, the honest answer to the second half is no.
Ends with
- One concrete observation about where your delivery model and your tooling have come apart
- An honest read on whether this is worth paying anyone to solve
- A straight answer on fit — including “you don't need us for this”
The Assessment
Two weeks · $12,500 fixed fee
Two weeks inside your delivery organization to find out where the real constraints are, not where the org chart says they are. We look at how work actually moves: how decisions get made, where handoffs cost you, what your teams do with the tooling versus what leadership believes, and which of your process assumptions stopped being true.
The output is not a maturity score. It is a shortlist of problems worth funding, ranked by the cost of leaving each one alone, and a recommendation on which single one is worth the next six weeks — with the others explicitly deferred and the reason written down.
Ends with
- Three to five problems in plain language, with the cost of inaction on each
- A scope, deliverable, and price for the first one, so proceeding is a decision rather than a negotiation
- A read-out session with your leadership team
The Iteration
Six weeks · $35,000 fixed scope
Six weeks against a single problem with the outcome agreed before we start. That may mean rebuilding how a portfolio makes commitments, standing up a development workflow a team will actually keep using, or dismantling a piece of process that is quietly costing you a sprint a quarter.
We are in the detail here, working with your teams rather than presenting to them. This is the part that consultancies usually delegate downward and we do not.
Ends with
- One problem materially solved inside the fixed window
- The capability documented, demonstrated, and owned by a named person on your side
- A closing handoff: what changed, what your team now owns, what we would do differently
The close
At the end of every iteration
We give you an honest assessment of whether a second iteration is worth funding. If there is another problem worth six weeks, we will make the case for it and you can decline it. If there isn't, we say so and the engagement closes.
That second outcome is the normal one, not the disappointing one. A consultancy you cannot get rid of is not a partner.
What we don't do
Being clear about this early saves everybody a procurement cycle.
- We don't staff up. No bench, no pyramid, no junior team learning your business on your budget.
- We don't sell you tooling. No reseller agreements, referral fees, or implementation partnerships with any software vendor or systems integrator — so our read on what you have already bought has nothing riding on it.
- We don't run framework rollouts. Nobody needs a methodology deployed. They need one specific thing that is not working to start working.
- We don't open an engagement without an end date. If we cannot describe how it finishes, we will not start it.
- We don't write the report you ordered. If the evidence contradicts the brief, you get the evidence.
- We don't take work we can't do properly. Two active engagements at a time. If we are full, we will say so.
Next step
Start with forty-five minutes.
No charge, no deck. If it goes somewhere, the assessment is two weeks and a fixed fee — small enough to commission without a procurement cycle, and self-contained enough that you owe us nothing afterwards.