How an engagement runs
The four stages
Framing
One to two weeks. What the system has to prove, to whom, and by when. This is where an engagement is most likely to end, and ending it here is a good outcome for both parties.
Architecture
Three to five weeks. The written recommendation: the decision, the alternatives, the operating cost, and the risks named. Taken through your internal review with us in the room.
Delivery
Six to sixteen weeks, typically. The same team that wrote the architecture writes the code, with the operator documentation produced alongside rather than afterwards.
Handover or operate
Runbook, rehearsed recovery, and a trained internal team — or managed services under a written responsibility split.
What you get, in writing
A recommendation, with its alternatives
Including the case for not doing it. A document that only supports the option we would be paid to build is not advice.
An operating cost model
What the system costs to run in year two, which is the number most programmes discover late.
The risks, named
Written plainly enough that your risk function can act on them without translation.
Documentation for the second team
Written for the people who will operate this after we have gone, because that is who it is for.
Where we will tell you to stop
- When one party legitimately holds the authoritative record and every counterparty would accept it. A replicated database is cheaper, faster and easier to audit, and we will say so in writing.
- When the decision you want to automate has no labelled history. There is nothing to evaluate against, and the pilot becomes an opinion.
- When the programme depends on counterparties who have not committed to entering data. A shared ledger with one participant is a database with extra steps.
- When licensing an existing platform is cheaper and faster than the build you have asked us to quote. We publish the catalogue for that reason.
Commercial structures
Fixed-scope advisory, time-and-materials delivery, and managed services on a stated responsibility split. Which structure fits is a function of how well the scope is known, and we will say when a fixed price would mean pricing the unknowns into it. Vendor onboarding requirements, contracting positions and procurement routes are answered in advance on how to buy us.
Start a conversation
Tell us the decision you are trying to make. If the answer is that you should not build this, that is a conversation we would rather have in week one than in month six.