The thing that did the work cannot be the thing that checks the work. Every stage has a check that is not performed by whoever did the building.
Phase 1 — Discovery
Fixed price, short engagement. The priorities, the real process, and what I would recommend building — written down. If you take that document to somebody else, that is a fair outcome and you still leave with the thinking paid for.
Phase 2 — Build
One fixed price, or staged milestones if the work is large enough to need them. Estimated from the scope rather than from a conversation. You are never asked to commit to a build price before either of us knows what the build is.
Price is quoted after the problem is understood. The answer to “what do you charge” is a real sentence, not a dodge: I scope first so I can give you a real number instead of a guess.
Discovery ends with a document, not a feeling. Every scope I write has these parts, in this order — so you can judge what you are buying before you buy one.
01 — Map
Discovery is a deliverable, not a free pre-sales chat. I write down how the work actually happens — including the unofficial version that only the person doing it on Monday can describe. You own that document either way, including if you take it to somebody else.
02 — Build
Nothing gets built against a conversation. The price comes from the written scope, so we are both looking at the same page when we agree to it. Work arrives in slices you can open and use — there is no reveal at the end, because a reveal at the end is how a project fails quietly for three months first.
03 — Prove
Delivery ends when you can run it, recover it when it breaks, and show somebody what was checked. The thing that did the work is never the thing that checks the work — including when the thing that did the work is me.
I show it working. Live, not screenshots, and on your own data wherever I can.
I tell you what it does not do yet, before you find it.
You use it while I watch and say nothing. Wherever you hesitate is the defect.
What changed gets written down, along with what it means for the scope.
Anything new goes on the change list and gets priced. It is not quietly absorbed into this week.
Skips the instructions and moves quickly. Finds what breaks under speed.
The realistic path, and the one most of your staff will actually take. Finds what is merely annoying.
Finds what is genuinely unclear. If this person hesitates, that is a defect — not a training problem.
If you can point to a part of the business that still runs on workarounds, memory, or disconnected tools, that is enough to begin.
Request a Discovery conversation