You always know what happens next.
Most consulting is bought like a product and run on trust. Someone arrives, works apart from your team, hands over a document, and leaves with the only complete picture of what was decided and why.
This works the other way round. We agree the problem in words you would use, your people are in the room for the work rather than interviewed about it, and it ends with a named owner on your side who does not need me to keep it running.
01 / The approach
The goal comes first. The technology is whatever serves it.
Every engagement starts from a goal the business has already committed to and works backwards. Not from a platform, not from a vendor shortlist, and not from a technology anybody is excited about. It also means I will sometimes tell you the answer is a licence you already own, a process that should be retired, or nothing at all.
I do not sell development and I do not run projects. A project ends; the decisions it was meant to serve do not. The reasoning behind both is here.
02 / The shapes
Three ways this runs.
One decision, made properly and made now. Fixed scope, four to twelve weeks, ending with a decision, a measured baseline and a named owner. Or the decisions keep coming and nobody senior owns them, which is an agreed number of days a month against a named remit. Or you are building something technical and the senior call is missing, which is a named advisory seat with accountability attached.
Most people arrive assuming it is the first one. It often is not. All four ways in, with what each costs you, are on the home page.
03 / The phases
Five phases, each with something you keep.
Nothing runs open ended, and every phase leaves you something usable whether or not we carry on together.
Scope
The problem we agreed, written down before anything starts: what is in, what is deliberately out, who is involved on your side and on mine, and how we would both know it worked.
Evidence
Interviews, systems review and data assessment, with your people rather than about them. I talk to whoever does the work, not only whoever describes it, because those are usually different rooms.
Assessment
Every candidate scored against the seven gates, with the ones worth pausing marked as clearly as the ones worth starting.
Decision
A working session, not a document drop. The findings go up, your leadership team pulls them apart, and what survives is a roadmap they helped write rather than one they were handed.
Review
Ninety days on we check the baseline against what actually happened, whether or not I am still engaged and whether or not the answer flatters either of us.
04 / Your side of it
What this costs you in time, not money.
The question nobody asks on the call and everybody worries about afterwards. Here is the honest answer, because an engagement that quietly eats your team is a failed engagement even if the recommendation was right.
| Phase | What I need from you | Your time |
|---|---|---|
| Scope | One conversation to agree what is in and what is out | 45 minone person |
| Evidence | Six to ten interviews with the people doing the work, and a walkthrough of the systems | 8 hrsspread across the organisation |
| Assessment | Nothing scheduled. Occasional questions by message when something does not add up | 2 hrsad hoc, no meetings |
| Decision | One working session with the leadership team who will act on it | 90 minleadership team |
| Review | One session ninety days later against the baseline we agreed | 60 minwhoever owns the outcome |
| Total across the whole engagement | ~2 daysof your organisation | |
If an engagement starts drifting past this, that is a signal something is wrong with the scope, and I will raise it rather than bill it.
05 / The fit
I would rather lose the work than take the wrong work.
A bad fit costs you a quarter and costs me a reference. Both of us are better off finding out in the first fifteen minutes.
Worth a conversation
- You have enough going on that the numbers matter, and margin that is being argued about
- You have a finance system, a CRM and some reporting, and data you cannot fully use
- Your IT team has no data scientists in it
- Nobody owns data and AI as their actual job, and hiring somebody who could is not justifiable yet
- You have more ideas than capacity and no agreed way to sequence them
- You would rather hear an honest no than a comfortable yes
Probably not me
- You want a co founder taking equity instead of a fee
- You want a body shop rather than someone accountable for the outcome
- You have already decided what to buy and want a business case written backwards to justify it
- You need a team on site full time from next week
- You need the answer to be yes before the work starts
- You are at the very beginning, with no customers and no numbers to work from yet
- You need a procurement process, a panel and six weeks of paperwork before anything can start
06 / The terms
The commercial terms, in plain words.
These are the same on every engagement. Nothing here is a negotiating position, and none of it is buried in a schedule at the back.
- Mutual NDA as standard. Signed before the first working session, not after.
- Fixed scope and fixed fee. Agreed in writing before anything starts, and it does not move without your written agreement.
- You own the output. The scoring, the value cases, the models and the working files. Not licensed to you. Yours.
- Nothing auto renews. Ongoing work ends when you stop asking for it, with thirty days notice either way.
- The ninety day review is included. It happens whether or not you renew, and whether or not the news is good.
- Your data stays yours. I do not take copies off site, and I work in your systems where practical.
- I declare the conflict before you have to ask. If my assessment points at a build I could profitably deliver, you hear that from me in the room, and you are free to take the work elsewhere.
07 / Questions
The ones I am always asked.
How is this different from hiring a consultancy?
A consultancy sends a team, produces a recommendation and leaves. I hold the role part time and stay accountable for what happens to that recommendation, including presenting it to your leadership team and answering for it at review.
What does it cost?
Assessments are fixed scope and fixed fee, agreed in writing before anything starts. Ongoing work is monthly against an agreed number of days, on a six month minimum term.
I quote against the specific engagement rather than publishing a rate card, because the right scope varies considerably. You will have a written figure before any work begins, and it will not move without your agreement.
Do you build things?
Yes. I have built and shipped platforms, and where building is genuinely the right answer I can do it or manage whoever does. What I will not do is let the build decision be made by whoever benefits from building, which is why the assessment is always a separate piece of work.
We already have a Head of Data. Is this still relevant?
Often not, and I will say so. If you have that capability, what you usually need is support for the person doing it rather than another voice above them.
Where it does help is at leadership level, on governance, value cases and independent challenge. That is a much narrower engagement.
How quickly can you start?
I work with a small number of clients at a time, so there is sometimes a wait for ongoing capacity. A briefing or an assessment can usually start within two to three weeks.
What happens to our data?
I work under a mutual NDA as standard. I do not take copies of client data off site, and I use your systems where practical. Full details go in the statement of work before anything starts.
Still sounds like a fit?
No deck and no pitch. If I am not the right person for this I will say so on the call and point you at who is.
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