The approach

Understand. Design. Execute. Review.

The same four phases run through every engagement, whether the work is a two week diagnostic or a year of delivery. Each phase has its own objectives, its own outputs and its own price, and each one ends with a decision that belongs to you.

The reasoning

Why split the work at all?

Because the two most expensive mistakes in consulting both happen at the start. The first is solving a problem nobody actually has. The second is committing to a programme before anyone has proved they understand the business.

Splitting the work at four natural breakpoints fixes both. You get something usable at the end of every phase, you see the cost of the next one before you agree to it, and if the answer at the end of Understand is that the problem is smaller than you feared, you have spent one phase finding that out instead of four.

It also keeps us honest. We have to earn the next phase every time.

Each phase ends with something you can use, and a decision that is genuinely yours to make.How the model works

In detail

The four phases

Phase 01Understand

We listen, then we prove we heard you. The phase ends with the problem written down in a form you recognise and would defend in front of your board.

  • Internal analysis
  • External analysis
  • PESTEL
  • Benchmarking
  • Data analysis
Inside the understand phase
Phase 02Design

Options, not an option. Costed at three budget levels and sequenced short, mid and long term, so the choice you make is a real choice.

  • SWOT
  • Process mapping
  • Financial modelling
  • Budget scenarios
  • Phased plan
Inside the design phase
Phase 03Execute

The design leaves the page. You pick the level of help, from a handover guide you run yourself through to us running the programme.

  • Know-how guide
  • Light touch PMO
  • Full PMO
  • Agile or traditional
Inside the execute phase
Phase 04Review

Did it do what it was designed to do? We measure the return, capture the learning, and say plainly what we would do differently.

  • ROIC analysis
  • Survey & feedback
  • Lessons learned
  • Light to full audit
Inside the review phase

Constants

What stays the same in every phase

The methods change with the problem. These do not.

  1. You always know who is doing the work

    Every engagement is staffed by name. The people you meet in the first conversation are the people who write the model, run the workshops and present the findings.

  2. You always get something usable

    No phase ends in a verbal update. Understand ends in a written problem statement. Design ends in costed options. Execute ends in delivered change. Review ends in evidence.

  3. You always see the price before the work

    Hours, the rate for each person, and a fixed margin on top. Scoped per phase, quoted per phase, invoiced per phase.

  4. You can always stop

    Ending an engagement after any phase is a normal outcome, not a failure. Everything produced up to that point is yours, in a form your own team can pick up and run with.

See how the phases are priced

Next step

Which phase are you in?

Most conversations start with a problem that is not yet written down. That is Understand, and it is the cheapest phase to buy. Tell us what is going on and we will tell you what the first phase would look like.

Start a conversation See how we work