Practical guide / Business systems
Do you need technical leadership, or a defined piece of delivery?
The distinction is the responsibility you need someone to take. An ongoing stream of technical decisions, an uncertain systems problem and a clearly defined build call for different working arrangements.
Start with the responsibility.
A programme can need more than one of these. The useful step is to make each responsibility explicit, then allocate enough capacity to it.
| What you need | A useful starting point |
|---|---|
| Someone to keep making and coordinating technical decisions | An ongoing technical leadership role with agreed authority and capacity. |
| Clarity about a problem spanning systems and teams | A bounded systems assessment before committing to a delivery phase. |
| One process understood and a solution plan established | Focused discovery with outputs agreed around that question. |
| A known change built, tested and handed over | Defined implementation with scope and acceptance criteria. |
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When technical leadership is the job.
Look at the decisions that keep returning: priorities, trade-offs, supplier proposals, development planning, release readiness and handover. If these need a consistent point of coordination, an ongoing technical role may fit.
Agree which decisions the consultant can make, which they recommend and which remain with your organisation. Include preparation, meetings, reviews and communication when estimating the time needed.
When the outcome is a defined build.
A project engagement fits work that can be described with boundaries and acceptance criteria. What will be delivered? Which systems and people are involved? What must the output do before it is accepted?
If those answers depend on unresolved questions, assess the uncertain part first. A quote can cover the first understood phase without pretending that the entire programme is already known.
How my engagement prices relate to the work.
These are my published starting terms, not a market-wide pricing survey. We agree the applicable role and scope before the work starts.
| Engagement | Published basis | What the number refers to |
|---|---|---|
| Individual technology leadership | £900/day | A focused leadership or review engagement. |
| Ongoing technical direction | £3,000/month | 30 hours, equivalent to four 7.5-hour days; preparation and communication use the same allowance. |
| Complex workstream delivery | £750/own working day | A planning basis for agreed complex leadership and delivery, not an entire programme budget. |
| Defined implementation | £575/day | A planning basis for well-defined work, including agreed coordination, testing and handover. |
| Complex systems assessment | From £6,000 | One workstream, sized for eight own working days, up to six interviews and a high-level review of four core systems. |
| Focused discovery | £2,500 fixed | One defined process, up to four own working days; later delivery is quoted separately. |
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Compare capacity and scope alongside the price.
A monthly fee, a day rate and a fixed assessment price describe different things. For my leadership retainer, £3,000 divided by four 7.5-hour days is £750 per day of reserved monthly capacity. An individual leadership day is £900.
The £750 planning basis for a complex delivery workstream is a separate engagement category. It does not turn a full programme, additional specialists or operating costs into one personal day rate.
Discovery is paid work in its own right. A subsequent delivery quote uses its findings without charging for the same discovery work twice; there is no automatic deduction of the discovery fee.
Set the operating boundaries.
Available time
How many hours or days are reserved, what uses that allowance and how additional work is approved.
Response and resolution
For my monthly leadership engagement, the commitment is a response within two UK working days. The time to resolve an issue depends on the work.
Delivery ownership
Who builds, tests, accepts and releases the work, and which decisions belong to the client or another supplier.
Live operations
Monitoring, incident response and recovery need an explicit arrangement before launch where the system is business-critical.
Bring one example of the work ahead.
For leadership, bring the next few technical decisions and the people involved. For delivery, bring a description of the result you want and what is already known. For an uncertain systems problem, bring the current process and its points of friction.
That gives us a useful basis for deciding what kind of engagement fits, before either of us commits to a larger programme.
A useful next step
Let’s choose a useful starting point.
Our first conversation is 30 minutes and free. Tell me about the decisions or the outcome you need help with.
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View the full engagement terms.