Technical consulting
Architecture review, vendor assessment and a second opinion before you commit the budget.
The challenge
A proposal arrives with a price, a timeline and forty pages nobody in the organisation can independently assess, so the decision ends up resting on the vendor's confidence.
The other case is a system already in production that everyone suspects is fragile, with no assessment of whether it should be repaired, replaced, or left exactly as it is.
How we approach it
Read the actual artefacts
The code, the contract and the servers — not the summary of them.
Agree the criteria first
What a good answer looks like, before we start assessing.
Cost every option
Including the option of changing nothing at all.
Write for the decision-maker
A recommendation the person who signs can act on.
The same four phases, whatever we are building.
- 012–3 weeks
Discovery
We map your current process, users and constraints, then define scope in writing.
- 022–4 weeks
Design
Interface and data design, reviewed with the people who will use the system daily.
- 036 weeks+
Build
Delivery in two-week increments, each one testable, with progress visible throughout.
- 04Ongoing
Launch & support
Deployment, training and documentation, then optional support at a level you choose.
What you get
- The current state, with the evidence behind each finding.
- Ranked by likelihood and cost, not by how alarming it sounds.
- Repair, replace or leave alone, each with a cost attached.
- One, stated plainly, with the reasoning that produced it.
- The specific questions to put to a bidder before signing.
What changes
Evidence, not impression
Every finding tied to something we read.
Costed options
Including what it costs to change nothing.
Written to be acted on
For the person who signs, not for engineers.
Interests declared
Where we could bid on the work, the report says so.
Often looked at together.
Digital transformation
Process mapping, sequencing and adoption support, measured on use rather than delivery.
Software development
Custom web and backend systems, built to be maintained by someone else.
Enterprise & custom business software
Custom operational systems for companies that have outgrown spreadsheets and disconnected tools.
About this work specifically.
General questions about scope, ownership and timelines are answered on the resources page.
Only with the conflict stated in writing at the start and repeated in the report. Where the review is genuinely better done by someone with no interest in the outcome, we will tell you that instead of taking the engagement.
One to three weeks, depending on how much there is to read. You receive a written report and a working session to go through it, and the report is yours to share with any vendor you choose.
Tell us what you need built.
We reply within two working days with honest scope and next steps — including when we are not the right fit.