Engagements
Four of them, and every week has a deliverable against it.
A week is four days on your work and one on mine. The fifth day is where the writing happens, and the writing is the deliverable. You can stop at the end of any week after the first two.
Operations review
You know something is wrong and cannot name it. Most engagements start here and about half stop here too.
$13,000
| When | Work | What exists at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | On site. I watch, I follow three jobs end to end, and I interview eight people including the two everybody warns me about. | A map of how work actually moves, which is never the map on the wall. |
| Week 2 | The findings, written and argued with you rather than presented at you. | Ten to fifteen problems, ranked by what they cost you, with the three worth fixing first marked. |
Process rebuild
One process is broken and everybody knows which one. Usually scheduling, quoting, or handover to delivery.
$26,000
| When | Work | What exists at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Week 1 | The current process, documented from observation rather than from what anybody says it is. | The real process, drawn, with every handoff and every wait marked. |
| Week 2 | Redesign, in a room with the people who do the work rather than the people who manage it. | The new process, agreed, with the three arguments it caused written down and resolved. |
| Week 3 | Build. Forms, checklists, whatever the system needs, made rather than specified. | Working artefacts. Not a document describing artefacts. |
| Week 4 | Run it live with me standing there, fix what breaks on the first day. | A written handover and a named owner who is not me. |
Interim cover
Your operations manager left and the search will take four months. Somebody has to hold it in the meantime.
From $6,500 a week
| When | Work | What exists at the end |
|---|---|---|
| Weeks 1–2 | Take the diary, the escalations, and the standing meetings. | Nothing dropped. That is the whole deliverable and it is harder than it sounds. |
| Ongoing | Run it, and write down what the role actually consists of while doing it. | A job description built from the real work, and a hiring plan. |
| Last two weeks | Handover to whoever you hired, in the room, on live work. | Their first month planned, and my number for ninety days. |
A day of observation
You are not sure any of this is worth doing. One day, no deliverable, no obligation.
$1,800
| When | Work | What exists at the end |
|---|---|---|
| One day | I stand in your operation and watch. No interviews, no slides, no notebook theatre. | A conversation at the end of the day and an email the next morning. Nothing formal. |