Services Our Approach Client Stories About Contact

Our Approach

We have one approach. We have not diversified.

The Problem We Solve

Every consulting engagement has a scope. Every scope has edges. Nobody talks about the edges. They talk about what's in the center — the deliverables, the milestones, the outcomes — and they treat the edges as settled when they are not.

The edges are never settled. They expand. They blur. Things that were clearly outside scope six weeks ago are now "just a quick addition." Things that were clearly inside scope turn out to require five other things that are technically outside scope. The edges are where projects fail and relationships fray.

We work only on the edges. We define them, document them, and hold them. We do not advise on the center. The center is not our business.

The Process

1

Scoping Interview

We ask you to describe your engagement: what it includes, what it excludes, and what you're not sure about. The third category is usually the largest. It is always the most important.

2

Exclusion Mapping

We map everything outside the scope boundary. Every item, dependency, assumption, and stakeholder that is not included. We are thorough. Clients are often surprised by the length of this list. They should not be; they built the project.

3

Boundary Negotiation

We present the exclusion map and negotiate contested items. Some things the client wants to keep in scope; we document why. Some things we formally exclude over client objection; we document that too. The boundary must be agreed upon before the report is finalized.

4

The Definitive Out-of-Scope Report

Delivered laminated. Indexed. Final. The engagement is complete upon delivery. We do not follow up to see whether the boundaries held. We have found that asking this question rarely improves anything.

On lamination: The report is laminated because lamination communicates finality. A laminated document is not a working document. It cannot be annotated, amended, or casually altered. It is a record. When a client receives the laminated report, they understand, in a way that a PDF cannot communicate, that this is done. The scope has been defined. The exclusions are documented. The engagement is complete.