METHODWRIGHTServices
How engagements work
Four ways to work together. These are not tiers. A client may buy any one of them independently, and a single engagement may escalate through several.
Process Assessment
I follow your process with the people who run it, measure it, and deliver a findings report: where the friction is, what it costs you, and what is worth automating.
Read moreRemote Assessment
The same analysis, conducted remotely where the work does not require being physically present to see it.
Read moreCustom Build
I build the tool. Intake applications, automated enrichment, structured records, and reporting on the systems you already run.
Read moreProductivity Applications
Packaged tools for the manual-process problems that recur across small and midsize businesses.
Read moreThe method behind all four
- Follow the work. Through the process, with the people who do it.
- Measure it. Step by step, producing the baseline.
- Find the friction. Stalls, backtracks, waits for a decision, re-entered information.
- Rebuild the procedure, then build the tool.
The documented process changes first. The software follows. That order is why the tools get used.
Start where you actually are
Everything above assumes discovery comes first. For most inquiries it should. But the four services are not a sequence, and there is a second way in.
If you do not know where the time goes
Start with a Process Assessment, or a Remote Assessment where the work lives in systems rather than on a floor. You get a measured baseline and a findings report, and you decide afterward whether to build anything at all.
If you already know
Direct me to it. A directed engagement skips discovery and goes straight to scoping the thing you have named. See Custom Build. You are not required to buy an assessment to qualify for a build, and I will not sell you one to establish something you can already tell me.
The one thing I keep either way is a measurement of the before. On a directed engagement that is usually an hour, not a project. Without it, neither of us can say afterward whether the build worked.
Which one do you need?
| If this is your situation | Start here |
|---|---|
| You know a process is slow but cannot say where the time goes | Process Assessment |
| The work lives in systems and email, and travel is not worth it | Remote Assessment |
| You already know what is broken and want it fixed | Custom Build, directed |
| You want to know what a build would sit on before committing | Platforms |
| Your problem is a common one and you want the shortest path to a working tool | Productivity Applications |
| You are not sure which of these applies | Twenty-minute conversation |
What every engagement includes
- A defined end. Fixed scope and a date, not an open arrangement that renews by inertia.
- Written findings you keep, usable by someone other than me.
- Access agreed in writing before work starts, limited to what the work requires, and ended when the work ends.
- Documentation of anything built, and a named owner on your side who knows how it works.
- One person throughout. The person who assesses your process is the person who builds the tool.
How engagements are scoped
Fixed scope, fixed price, quoted after a conversation about the specific process. I do not bill hourly, and I do not quote a number before understanding what the work actually is.
Hourly billing rewards the wrong thing. It pays more for a slower diagnosis, and it charges you for every extra question at the very stage of the work when questions are cheapest to ask and most expensive to skip.
An assessment is usually days rather than months. A build depends entirely on scope, but because the documented procedure changes before the software does, there is normally something usable well before the end.
What I do not do
Being clear about this early saves us both a meeting.
- I do not replace your core systems. If someone has told you the answer is a new ERP, get a second opinion before you spend that money.
- I am not IT support and do not take on helpdesk, device management, or day-to-day network administration.
- I am not staff augmentation. Engagements have an end.
- I do not deliver a strategy deck and leave. The deliverable is either a findings report you can act on or a tool that runs.
- I do not reduce headcount for you. The measure is capacity returned to the business. What you do with that capacity is your decision, not part of the engagement.
Where to start
If one process in your business still runs on paper, spreadsheets, or email, that is the one worth talking about. The questionnaire takes about five minutes; a conversation covers the same ground in twenty.