Client Stories
Selected engagements, summarized with client consent. Identifying details withheld. The scope exclusions are real.
Technology / Enterprise Software
"We needed someone to tell us what we weren't doing. Nobody else would."
A software implementation project had expanded from an initial eight-week engagement to a fourteen-month ongoing effort with no defined end state. Every meeting added new requirements. Every stakeholder added new "must-haves." The project had no scope; it had momentum.
Out of Scope conducted a three-week exclusion assessment and delivered a report that formally excluded 47 items across six categories. Implementation resumed. It completed in eleven weeks. The client described this as "the most useful consulting engagement we have ever had." They meant it as a compliment. We accepted it as one.
Engagement duration: 3 weeks. Items excluded: 47. Project completion: 11 weeks post-report.
Professional Services / Consulting
"The laminated report is framed in our conference room."
A consulting firm engaged us to scope a client engagement that had grown beyond what their team could deliver. They did not need advice on how to deliver more. They needed formal documentation that certain things were not their responsibility. We provided it.
The client, presented with the Out-of-Scope Report, accepted all but two exclusions. Those two were documented as "contested exclusions" with supporting rationale. The client signed the boundary agreement. The engagement proceeded on defined terms. It completed on time. The report is framed in the conference room, which we did not anticipate but find appropriate.
Engagement duration: 2 weeks. Contested exclusions: 2. Engagement outcome: completed on time.
Healthcare / Operations
"It was the first time anyone had told us no in writing."
A healthcare operations team had been absorbing adjacent functions for three years. Their scope had expanded to include responsibilities that belonged to four other teams. They had never received written documentation that these responsibilities were not theirs. Everyone had simply assumed, and they had absorbed rather than push back.
Our exclusion assessment identified 23 functions currently performed by the team that were formally outside their organizational scope. The report was shared with leadership. Eleven functions were formally reassigned. The team's capacity improved by approximately 40%. The team lead described it as "the first time anyone had told us no in writing." This is, in our experience, a common outcome.
Engagement duration: 4 weeks. Functions excluded and reassigned: 11. Capacity improvement: ~40%.