OUr Approach
How we work
Most of our clients come to us through someone they trust. This page provides more information on how the work actually runs.
01
We're lean
Three consultants and two advisors. That's the whole collaborative, and the size is the point.
You deal directly with an expert consultant. There's no engagement team between you and the person doing the work — we're lean by design, so the person you brief is the person who delivers.
We only take on engagements where we already hold the expertise. We're a niche consultancy, and if a project needs a specialist we don't have, we say so rather than staffing around the gap.
Lean also tends to cost less. You aren't paying for the overhead a large consultancy carries, because there isn't any to price in.
02
A first conversation
A free call, and a free scoping exercise if you want to explore a project properly. No obligation either way.
01
Who you'll speak to
Your first call is with one of our three consultants. Not a business development team, and not someone who'll hand you on afterwards.
02
Who to bring
Calls go best when we can speak directly with the key stakeholders — the project sponsor, or whoever decides the goals and the resources.
03
What you leave with
High-level advice on the problem, and a recommended format for the work — or an honest referral elsewhere if we're not the right people.
03
Scoping
Bespoke work doesn't have to mean an open-ended commitment. You know what you're buying before you agree to it.
Goals and milestones
Projects are scoped with clear goals and defined milestones, set out in a written proposal against agreed outcomes.
Scoping
Normally free unless extensive research is required. We develop a scoping document to give you an overview of what a project might look like.
Detailed discovery
When you want to understand the problem before committing substantial resources to a solution, we can include a discovery phase in the project — analysis, and interviews with your key stakeholders.
Who you contract with
The proposal and engagement letter come from the business of the consultant leading your work. You'll always know exactly who you're contracting with before anything starts.
04
Typical engagements
Ranges rather than precision — enough to work out whether it's worth starting the conversation.
Duration
Three to 12 months is a sensible expectation for a programme of work.
Short advisory
Shorter advisory pieces are available on a fixed fee or an hourly basis.
Minimum size
There isn't one. If it's a question we can answer well, it's worth the conversation.
05
What we ask of you
Our best work happens alongside your team rather than at arm's length. Three things make that possible.
Access to the right people
Time with the people who hold the detail — programme staff, reviewers, whoever runs the systems day to day.
Clarity about constraints
The budget, the fixed deadline, the commitments you can't unpick. We'd rather design around them than around assumptions.
A decision-maker engaged
Someone who can settle questions of scope and resource, involved throughout rather than briefed at the end.
06
Confidentiality
Stated as a principle, not buried in an engagement letter.
Most of our work touches unpublished strategy, live funding decisions and applicant material. We treat all of it as confidential by default, and we don't name clients or describe engagements without written permission.