Predictable delivery, written down before it starts.
Consulting fails in familiar ways: unclear scope, senior people who disappear after the pitch, security bolted on late, and a handover that never happens. Our operating model is designed around avoiding each of those.
Five ways to work with us.
The commercial model should follow the shape of the problem. We will recommend the one that fits, including when that means a smaller contract than you asked for.
Fixed-scope project
Best when scope is clear and a date matters
A defined deliverable, milestone plan and commercial envelope agreed up front. We run a short discovery first so the estimate is grounded in something real rather than optimism.
- Statement of work & acceptance criteria
- Milestone billing
- Named delivery lead
- Warranty period after go-live
Dedicated pod
Best for continuous product development
A cross-functional squad — engineers, QA, BA and a tech lead — working to your backlog on a monthly rate. You direct priorities; we own delivery quality, staffing continuity and engineering standards.
- Cross-functional squad
- Fixed monthly cost
- Your backlog & ceremonies
- Scale up or down quarterly
Team augmentation
Best when you need specific skills, fast
Pre-vetted specialists embedded into your existing teams and reporting lines. Useful for covering a skills gap, a parental leave, or a spike in delivery load without permanent headcount.
- Individual specialists
- Your tooling & process
- Monthly or daily rates
- 30-day notice either way
Managed service
Best for systems already in production
We take operational ownership under an SLA — monitoring, support, patching and improvement. Transitions run through a structured knowledge-transfer period before we take the pager.
- Defined SLAs & escalation
- 24×7 options
- Monthly service reporting
- Continuous improvement backlog
Advisory & fractional leadership
Best when the decision matters more than the hours
Fractional CTO, principal architect or vCISO engagements for organisations that need senior technology judgement without a full-time executive hire.
- Architecture & tech strategy
- Vendor and build/buy decisions
- Security & compliance direction
- Board-level reporting
Six stages, each with artefacts you can hold us to.
Not every engagement runs all six — a managed service starts at Run, an advisory piece may stop at Design. The stages that do apply come with defined outputs.
- 01
Discover
Workshops with the people who own the problem. We map the current state, constraints, risks and success measures — and tell you plainly if the thing you asked for is not the thing you need.
Artefacts
- Current-state assessment
- Prioritised requirements
- Risk register
- Success metrics
- 02
Design
Architecture, security model and delivery plan, documented as decisions with trade-offs rather than diagrams without context. Reviewed with your team before anyone writes code.
Artefacts
- Solution architecture
- Architecture decision records
- Threat model
- Delivery roadmap & estimate
- 03
Build
Two-week sprints with working software at the end of each one. Automated tests, security scanning and peer review are entry criteria for merge — never a later clean-up phase.
Artefacts
- Sprint demos
- CI/CD pipeline
- Test automation suite
- Living documentation
- 04
Secure
Controls validated against the threat model, not against a checklist. Findings are fixed and re-tested before release, and evidence is retained for your audit trail.
Artefacts
- Security test results
- Remediation log
- SBOM & dependency posture
- Compliance evidence pack
- 05
Run
Production ownership with observability, SLOs and an on-call rotation. Incidents get a written post-incident review and a root-cause fix in the backlog.
Artefacts
- SLO dashboard
- Runbooks
- Incident reviews
- Monthly service report
- 06
Improve
Quarterly reviews against the metrics we agreed at the start — delivery throughput, reliability, cost and security posture — with the next quarter's priorities set from evidence.
Artefacts
- DORA & SLO trends
- Cost optimisation report
- Roadmap refresh
- Knowledge transfer
From first call to first sprint in about ten working days.
Assuming standard contracting. Regulated clients with deeper vendor due diligence typically add two to four weeks — we will tell you which you are at the first call.
Scoping call & NDA
A working session with an architect, not a sales pitch. We leave with a written problem statement and the constraints that matter.
Proposal & commercials
Approach, team shape, assumptions, risks and price. Assumptions are listed explicitly so you can challenge them before signature.
Contracting & access
MSA and SOW, security onboarding, background checks where required, and least-privilege access provisioning.
Kick-off & sprint one
Team introductions, environment access verified, backlog agreed, and the first sprint under way with a demo date already in the calendar.
What accountability looks like in practice.
Named accountability
Every engagement has a named delivery lead and a named technical owner. Escalation paths are written into the contract, not improvised during an incident.
Weekly transparency
A short written status each week: what shipped, what slipped, what changed, what we need from you. No status theatre.
Metrics we agree up front
Delivery throughput, defect escape rate, SLO attainment and cost — baselined at the start so progress is arguable with evidence.
Change handled honestly
Scope changes get re-estimated and re-agreed. We would rather have an awkward conversation in week three than a surprise in week twelve.
Your IP, your repositories
Code lives in your version control from day one. Intellectual property ownership is unambiguous in the contract.
Planned handover
Documentation, runbooks and knowledge transfer are deliverables with acceptance criteria, produced throughout — not a rushed final week.
Bring us a problem, not a specification.
The most useful first conversation is about the outcome you need and the constraints you are under. We will turn that into scope — and tell you what we would do differently.
Typical response within one business day · NDA available on request