How we work
Fixed scope,no surprises halfway
How we turn a poorly defined problem into a fixed price and timeline, who does what on the team, and what you get at each stage.
The stages of a project
Four stages. The first two are short and have an exit door: you can stop without losing what you have already received.
- 1
Assessment with you
We get the problem in your words: what is stuck and what it costs the operation. We ask about the budget early, so we can propose something that fits it. If the problem isn't worth solving, or isn't worth solving with software, we tell you in the same conversation. You leave with the problem described on one page.
Exit door: you can stop here, at no cost.
- 2
Scoping sprint, at a fixed price
Fifteen days, with the price agreed up front, ending with the four documents described below: fixed scope, acceptance criteria, delivery plan and fixed price.
Exit door: if you don't proceed, the four documents are yours.
- 3
Execution in short cycles
It only starts once the four documents are signed. We deliver in short cycles and you validate each delivery. Each milestone closes with an acceptance report, with the evidence for each criterion checked. The price doesn't change because of technical difficulty, only because of a scope change you request.
- 4
Go-live and warranty
The system in production, operations documentation and metrics being read. Then comes a 30-day warranty: a defect in the delivered scope, meaning behavior that differs from the acceptance criterion, is fixed at no cost.
What you get before deciding
The scoping sprint takes 15 days, is fixed-price and ends with four documents. If you decide not to proceed, they are yours, and you can take them to another vendor.
Fixed scope
A numbered list of what will be built, and an explicit list of what will not. It is the second list that prevents the argument at the end.
Acceptance criteria
For each item, the sentence that defines done in a testable way. No adjectives, no interpretation.
Delivery plan
Phases, milestones and dates, with what you receive at each one. No gap between payments goes past six weeks without a verifiable delivery.
Fixed price
Total value, payment terms and the change-of-scope rule. The price does not move because the work turned out hard: that risk is ours.
Who does what
We coordinate and split responsibilities, and we all think through the system together. Each area has an owner, and client service follows your project from first contact to after-sales.
Tech lead
Leads the assessment and the scoping sprint, organizes the plan, reviews and decides the merge. Accountable to you for the project.
Architecture and data
Solution design, data architecture and machine learning architecture.
Front-end and design
Design system, prototypes and screens.
Backend and integrations
APIs, integrations with other systems and data flows.
AI
AI features, from the model to the product.
Infra, DevOps and security
Infrastructure, pipelines, observability and security.
Cadence and records
What you get during the project, so you know where it stands without having to ask.
Monthly report
One page a month: how much of the plan was delivered, the risks and what we need from you.
Scope change
You ask in writing and get the impact on timeline and price within two business days. The decision is yours, and nothing gets built before your answer.
Milestone sign-off
Each milestone closes with a report that shows the evidence for each acceptance criterion checked. Payment follows the accepted milestones.
Handover
At go-live, your team gets the operations runbook, the documentation and a handover session.
The code and the cloud are yours from the first commit. No proprietary component of ours sits inside your system.
Indicative schedule
Reference figures for a mid-sized project. The real schedule, with dates, comes out of the scoping sprint in the delivery plan.
- 15 days
01 Discovery and technical alignment
Detailed scope, prototypes and architecture decisions.
- 6 weeks
02 Development and integration
Frontend, backend and APIs, with deliveries you validate each cycle.
- 2 weeks
03 Testing and technical validation
Automated, integration and end-to-end tests.
- 1 week
04 Documentation and observability
Solution documentation, logs, metrics and alerts.
- Final milestone
05 Final delivery and go-live
Code, access and the production environment, with metrics being read.
Phases overlap: testing starts alongside development. Dates are fixed in the contract and only move through a change of scope you request.
What we need from you
The most common cause of delay is not technical difficulty, it is waiting. We list these items before fixing the date and treat each one as a dependency with an owner and a deadline.
Decisions and people
Someone with authority to approve scope and sign-off, a technical point of contact, and agreed availability. Without a decision-maker, every question becomes a committee meeting.
Access and credentials
Cloud account, repository and DNS in your name. Infrastructure is born in your account and the code is yours from the first commit.
Systems and integrations
For each system: documentation, a test environment and a technical contact. Without a sandbox, testing happens in production, and we do not do that.
Data
Representative test data and an anonymisation rule. A system validated against three made-up records breaks on its first real day.
Environments and compliance
Who pays for infrastructure, where you validate before go-live, and the data-protection footing of the project, which changes architecture and logging.
After delivery
Who operates the system, where alerts go, and when handover happens. An alert that reaches nobody is decoration.
How missing items shape the plan
No classification ritual: we sequence the delivery around what exists. Work that depends on a missing item moves later; work that is ready moves up.
The schedule always reflects reality, not the original wish.
When something only you can provide is missing and cannot be worked around, the affected phase waits and the date moves with it, agreed in contract, no penalty.
The questions every founder asks
What if I change my mind mid-project?
Fixed scope is not frozen scope. You request the change in writing, we return the impact on timeline and price within two business days, and you choose: accept, swap it for an equivalent item we have not started, or drop it. Swapping costs nothing and is the most common path. Nothing gets built before your answer.
What if you get the estimate wrong?
It will happen, and the price does not move: estimation risk is ours and was priced in. If the timeline is affected, you hear about it the day we do, not the day before the milestone. And we propose cutting a low-value item before we propose a delay, the choice is yours.
Is the code really mine?
Yes, from the first commit, in your repository and your cloud account. No proprietary component of ours sits inside your system. You do not need us to keep going, and that is deliberate: a vendor who locks a client in through technical dependency does not have to deliver quality.
What if a prerequisite arrives late?
We flag it the day it becomes a risk, not the day it becomes a delay. We propose a workaround when one exists, synthetic data instead of the real set, for example, and we record the rework that workaround will cause. If it is blocking and there is no workaround, the phase freezes and the date shifts by the same amount.
You use AI to write code. Who answers for it?
We do. AI is a tool for our developers, used where the result can be checked. Every change goes through review before the merge, and the tech lead answers for the project.
How do I know the project is on schedule?
Every month you get a one-page report with how much of the plan was delivered, the risks and what we need from you. Each milestone closes with the evidence for each acceptance criterion, and any number that goes into a report was measured, never estimated.
What happens after go-live?
For 30 days, any defect in the delivered scope is fixed at no cost. A defect is behavior that differs from the acceptance criterion; new functionality is new scope and follows the change procedure. Your team gets the runbook and the documentation to run the system without us.
Shall we fix the scope?
Thirty minutes, no charge. You leave knowing whether the problem is worth solving, whether it is worth solving with software, and whether we are the right people.