Process
SIX STAGES.STOP AFTER ANYOF THEM.
Start small, prove it, then scale. Each stage ends with something you can use, so the decision to continue is made on evidence rather than on a contract you already signed.
Audit
Before any contract, and deliberately from the outside. The question this stage answers is whether you need us at all.
What happens
- Walk the process as it runs today, with whoever actually runs it
- Read the systems already in place and what they cost you
- Name the constraint: a handoff nobody owns, a corpus nothing can read, a tool that fails in the field
What you get
- A written read on where the money leaks
- The risks we can see, including the ones that make this a bad project
- A straight answer on whether to continue, and with whom
You have something useful whether or not you hire us.
Discovery
The audit looked from outside. Discovery goes inside, with access to the real data, the real edge cases and the people who know where the bodies are.
What happens
- Map the process end to end, including the exceptions everyone works around
- Go through real records, not a sanitised sample
- Identify what has to stay correct when a system upstream lies
- Agree what success would actually look like, in numbers where numbers exist
What you get
- A process map your team recognises as accurate
- A data model sketch and an integration inventory
- The list of things we will deliberately not build
Scope stops being a wishlist and becomes a decision.
Planning
A plan you are meant to argue with. If the first slice is wrong, this is the cheapest possible moment to find out.
What happens
- Propose the narrowest first slice that is still useful in production
- Set the architecture, and say plainly what it rules out later
- Price it, under whichever engagement model fits
- Write the plan down so it can be checked against later
What you get
- A scoped first release with a date
- An architecture decision record, in your repository
- A quote and a model: fixed-cost, time and materials, staff augmentation or build partner
You approve a plan, or you walk with the map and the audit.
Execution
Shipped in increments, never as one reveal at the end. Your current system keeps running the whole time.
What happens
- Build and release weekly, into an environment you can open
- Demo every week against the plan, including what slipped
- Keep tests on the logic that would cost money if it were wrong
- Re-scope in the open when reality disagrees with the plan
What you get
- Working software in your repository from the start
- A weekly release and a weekly demo
- A visible backlog, so progress is never a status report
The first slice is in production with real users on it.
Launch
The riskiest moment in any project is the switch. It gets planned as carefully as the build.
What happens
- Migrate data with a dry run first, and a way back
- Cut over in a window your operation can absorb
- Train the people who will use it, not only the people who bought it
- Watch it under real load on the first day
What you get
- A rehearsed cutover with a rollback plan
- Technical and user documentation written as we go
- Live training sessions, recorded
The new thing is the thing people use.
Post-launch
Software is not finished at launch, it is only exposed. The period just after go-live is where the real defects appear.
What happens
- Monitor in production alongside your team
- Stabilise, tune performance, fix what real use surfaces
- Hand over the operational runbook properly
What you get
- A period of hypercare, with no new contract
- A runbook your team can act on without calling us
- An honest view of what to do next, including nothing
Support, staff augmentation, or you run it yourselves. All three are fine.
TRUE AT EVERY STAGE
You own it from day one
Your repository, your cloud account, your region. Not ours, not held hostage at the end.
Weekly, not quarterly
A release and a demo every week, so progress is visible rather than reported.
Stop at any stage
Every stage ends with something usable. Leaving early costs you the stage you are in, not the project.
We will say no
If a stage is unnecessary for your situation we will skip it, and say so before you pay for it.
IT STARTS WITH THE AUDIT.
Free, and it ends with an honest read on whether you need us. That is the only commitment to make right now.
Start a project