Five phases. You approve each one before it starts.
Nobody should commit a six-figure sum to a plan drawn up before anyone understood the problem. So you commit one phase at a time, and every phase hands you something worth having in its own right. Most clients here start with discovery and decide the rest from what it tells them.
Your live date is fixed at the end of phase two, once both sides know exactly what is being built. From then on it does not move.
Why we do it that way round01About an eighth of the whole
Getting to the truth
A written account of how your work really runs today, what the current way is costing you, and what your new system has to do about it.
14% of the build effort
What happens
- Your people who do the work get sat with, not only the people who commissioned the software. That is where the rules actually governing your business turn out to live.
- Every awkward case gets followed all the way through, because the awkward cases are exactly what defeated the packaged option you already tried.
- Whatever already works gets left alone. Replacing something your people are happy with costs you money and buys you nothing.
- The current way of working gets a number put on it, so your decision to build rests on a figure rather than a feeling.
What you end up with
- A written account of how it actually runs today, including the parts nobody had written down
- What the new system has to do, in priority order, with the reasons
- A revised figure and a proposed live date, both firmer than anything on our website
What we need from you
Two days of the right people, spread across a fortnight.
02A fifth of the whole
Shaping it
Every screen and every decision your system will make, in front of you and signed off, with your live date fixed at the end of it.
20% of the build effort
What happens
- Every screen gets drawn and put in front of you, ordered the way the job is actually done rather than the way a menu would list it.
- Every decision your system will make on its own gets written in a sentence you can check, and you are the one who checks it.
- Anything harder than it looked surfaces here, while changing it still costs an afternoon rather than a month.
- Your live date is fixed at the end of this phase, along with exactly what fits inside it.
What you end up with
- Every screen, clickable, before anything is built for real
- The rules written in plain sentences, signed off by the people who will be held to them
- A fixed price and a fixed date for the build
What we need from you
A day a week, and somebody who can decide without going away to ask.
03Half the whole
Building it
Your system takes shape week by week in your own account, with something you can click on and try at the end of every fortnight.
100% of the build effort
What happens
- Work starts on whatever is most useful on its own, so value lands early and keeps landing every fortnight after it.
- Every fortnight there is a working version to try, on a real address, with real records in it.
- Your account shows what moved as it moves, so nobody has to write a status report or read one.
- Anything found along the way reaches you the day it is found, never saved up for a difficult conversation nearer the end.
What you end up with
- Something you can click on at the end of every second week, from the first month
- A running record of every decision taken and why
- Nothing at the end that you are seeing for the first time
What we need from you
An hour a fortnight to try it, and answers inside a couple of days when a decision is needed.
04About a quarter of the whole
Proving it
Your own people put it through real work with real records, and everything they find is fixed before anybody depends on it.
26% of the build effort
What happens
- Your own people put it through their own work, with their own records, before anybody depends on it.
- It gets run at several times your busiest hour to find what gives way, and then that gets fixed.
- It gets tested by keyboard alone and with a screen reader, whether or not you asked for it.
- Your history comes across for real, with old and new side by side for you to compare line by line.
What you end up with
- A system your own team has already used in anger and signed off
- Written evidence of what was tested and what it did
- Your history in it, checked against the old system line by line
What we need from you
A few of your people for a few hours each, across two or three weeks.
05Under a tenth of the whole
Going live
Your team moves across trained, with their history intact, on the date fixed months earlier.
9% of the build effort
What happens
- Your people are trained before the move rather than during it, in groups small enough to ask questions.
- The move is rehearsed on a copy first, so the day it happens for real is the fourth time it has been done.
- There is a way back, planned and tested before anything goes forward.
- Somebody who built it is on hand all day, and the day after.
What you end up with
- Your team across, trained, with their history intact, on the date agreed
- The old system readable for as long as you need it
- Everything needed to run it without us: the code, the documents, the accounts, all of it
What we need from you
A morning for training, and one nominated person on the day.
06All the way through
You can see where it is, at any hour, without asking.
From the first week you have an account. It shows what phase the work is in, what was finished yesterday, what is waiting on a decision from you, and whether the live date has moved.
It changes the moment the work does. Nobody writes a weekly report, because a weekly report is a week out of date by the time it is read.
Quoting and invoicing
S17-0042 · Hawksmoor Plant Hire
Building it — week 6 of 9
64%
- Your pricing rules, agreed and written downFri 4 Sep
- Quotes going out from the new systemWed 9 Sep
- Xero receiving finished invoicesThis week
- Your sign-off on the customer statement layoutNeeds you by Fri
- Your team trying it on real quotesFrom 29 Sep
Yesterday, 16:42 — Consolidated monthly statements now total correctly across all four depots. Worth a look before Thursday.
07Before you ask
The questions everybody has.
What if we want to stop halfway through?
At the end of any phase, and you keep everything produced up to that point including the code. No exit fee, nothing withheld. Each phase is shaped to stand on its own, which is exactly what makes stopping a real option rather than a threat.
What happens if the date is going to be missed?
You hear it the week it becomes visible, not the month it arrives. The date is then protected by cutting the least valuable thing rather than rushing the most important, and you choose what goes. A date that slips quietly is the failure. Scope that moves openly is the fix.
Who actually does the work?
The people you met. You will not meet a sales team and then be handed to somebody else, and nobody is substituted for a cheaper pair of hands once the contract is signed.
How do you charge?
Per phase, fixed, invoiced on completion. You approve the figure for the next phase before it starts, so your exposure is never more than the phase you are in.
Do you need access to our systems?
Only what the work genuinely requires, for only as long as it requires it. You get asked for the narrowest access that does the job, told exactly what it is for, and confirmation in writing the day it is handed back.
What happens after it goes live?
A month of close attention is included. After that, care is quoted monthly and cancellable on ninety days: keeping it quick, keeping it current, and a named person who already knows it. Changes are quoted separately, so you never pay a retainer that quietly covers nothing.
Put a date on it.
Half an hour with whoever would build it gets you the shape of the work, a figure you can take to your board, and the week it could start. No deck, no discovery fee, no follow-up sequence.
Or ring 01603 552024. A person answers it.