How a week works
Four days on your work. One on the writing.
$6,500 a week. The Friday is not padding — it is the day the thing you are actually paying for gets made.
Monday
On the floor
Watching, following work through, and being in the way as little as possible. I take notes and ask almost nothing on the first day.
Tuesday
Interviews
Six to eight people, half an hour each, including whoever everybody warned me about. They are usually right and usually not for the reason given.
Wednesday
Following the exceptions
The rush job, the complaint, the thing that came back. Exceptions are where a process tells you the truth about itself.
Thursday
Testing what I think
I say it out loud to the people who do the work and let them tell me I am wrong. Several times a month they do.
Friday
Writing
The deliverable. Not slides, and not a summary of the week — the artefact itself, finished, in your hands by the evening.
Why it is priced this way
- By the week, not by the project
- A project price rewards me for going slowly and rewards you for adding scope. A weekly rate makes both of us count the weeks, which is the correct incentive for everybody.
- Every week ends with an artefact
- A map, a rebuilt process, a written handover, a hiring plan. If a week ends and there is nothing you could use without me, it was a bad week and I will say so before you do.
- Stop at the end of any week
- No notice period and no minimum beyond the first two. Roughly half of operations reviews stop after week two, which is a fine outcome and often the right one.
- I work where the work is
- On the floor, in the warehouse, next to the person doing the scheduling. Not in a meeting room being briefed about it.