> the roadmap says what to do. this is help doing it.
Two ways to keep going: a project to build what the roadmap ranked first, and a retainer to make sure the rest of it doesn't rot.
> scoped from the roadmap, not before it
The most expensive thing a small firm can buy is the right system in the wrong order.
So we don't quote a build before the assessment. Not out of process for its own sake — we simply don't know yet whether the thing you want built is the binding constraint, or whether it sits on top of a foundation that can't hold it.
Once the roadmap exists, the scope is short and the number is real. Every item on it already has an owner, an order, and a build-or-buy call attached — so pricing the work is arithmetic, not a negotiation.
> the two follow-on engagements
Engagement 02 — Project
Architecture, data work, integrations, tool selection and rollout, pilots, and custom software where nothing off the shelf fits. Fixed scope, taken straight off the roadmap.
We start at the top of the now column — the binding constraint — and we finish one thing before starting the next.
> priced by size. $10k / $25k / $60k.
Engagement 03 — Retainer
A standing technical seat at the firm. The next decisions, the vendor calls, the governance review, the annual re-score.
For firms that finished the now column and would rather not rediscover all of this in eighteen months.
> $6,000 a month. capped at eight hours.
> what a project actually involves
The model is the last thing that goes in and the least of the work. What takes the time is the substrate underneath it — the data, the plumbing, the rules, and getting people to use the thing.
> how a project is sized
Small
$10k
Two to four weeks. One integration, or one automation.
The practice-management tool and the document store, wired together so nobody re-keys a client's details a third time.
Medium
$25k
Six to ten weeks. A workflow rebuilt end to end.
Document intake, classification, and routing — with the review point and the audit trail the profession requires, not bolted on after.
Large
$60k
Three to five months. A system the firm runs on.
Data consolidated out of five places into one store that can actually be queried, and the tooling that sits on top of it.
> a firm rarely needs the large one first. most roadmaps start with a small item that unblocks three others.
> the retainer
The cap is deliberate. If a month needs more than eight hours, it isn't a retainer month — it is a project, and we will say so rather than quietly rolling it in and billing you for it later.
Now, next, later. The now column gets done during a project. The other two rot unless somebody owns them after we leave.
A tool lands on the table between engagements. Forward it. We check the claim against your numbers before a partner has to guess.
New staff, new tools, new rules. A policy written once and never revisited is how firms end up back at Experimenting.
Before you sign something. Before you migrate something. Before you let a vendor near client data.
The same six axes, a year on. You see the shape move — or you see that it didn't, which is also worth knowing.
> what doesn't change when we build
We still don't sell software.
The obvious risk in a firm that both assesses and builds is that every assessment starts finding build work. Ours is priced so it doesn't have to. The roadmap is the deliverable whether or not you ever hire us again, and it names buy far more often than it names build — because for a firm of this size, buying is usually right.
We take no referral fees and carry no product line, so a recommendation to buy costs us nothing to make.
And we build to hand over. Documentation, a named owner inside the firm, no lock-in worth the name. You should be able to fire us and keep the system running.
> questions partners ask
“Can we skip the assessment and just have you build it?”
No. We don't scope a build without a roadmap — that's how firms end up with the right system in the wrong order. If you had an assessment done elsewhere and it holds up, bring it and we'll work from that.
“Do we have to use you for the build?”
No, and the roadmap is written so you don't have to. It names the work, the order, and the build-or-buy call — not the vendor. Take it to anyone. Some firms run the whole thing in-house.
“What if the roadmap says buy?”
Then it says buy, and most items do. The assessment is priced so that it never needs to sell you a build. If the answer is a tool you already pay for with a feature switched off, that's the answer, and we don't get paid to build around it.
“What happens when the build is finished?”
You get the system, the documentation, and a named owner inside the firm who knows how it runs. You should be able to stop working with us and keep everything. Some firms move to the retainer; plenty don't need to.
“Is the retainer a support contract?”
No. Support for what we built is part of handing it over. The retainer buys judgment — the next decisions, not the last one's bugs.
Get the roadmap first. Decide about the rest of it after you have one.
> or see the work behind the advice.