Fixed Scope
Find out where AI pays in your business, and where it does not
Three weeks. A decision-grade answer, from someone with no software to sell you. You leave owning the roadmap whether or not you engage us to run it.
Investment
$5,000
Duration
3 weeks
If you engage
100% credited to your retainer
The Problem With Starting
The hardest question is which question to answer first
Most leadership teams do not need convincing that AI matters. They need to know which two or three things are worth doing in their business, in what order, and what has to be true first. That is a different problem from picking a tool, and it is the one nobody internally has the time or the vantage point to solve.
This engagement answers it. It is deliberately fixed in scope and price so you can commit to finding out without committing to a program.
What Happens
Three weeks, in this order
The order matters more than the activities. Starting from the business and working back to the technology is what stops the output being a shopping list.
Week One
Understand the business
Interviews with the leadership team, individually. How money is made, where it leaks, what the next four quarters are supposed to look like, and where the current friction actually sits. No system inventory yet. That comes second, and it comes out differently once this question is answered.
- Structured interviews with CEO, plus CFO or COO where relevant
- Review of how work actually moves, not how the org chart says it does
- Agreement on what a good outcome would look like in twelve months
Week Two
Map the operating reality
Systems, data, and the handoffs between them. What you own, what you rent, what is duplicated, and where the manual work is concentrated. This is where the gap between the documented process and the real one shows up, and that gap is usually the opportunity.
- System and vendor inventory, with contract and renewal exposure noted
- Data flow traced end to end for the two or three processes that matter most
- The blocking conditions: where data quality, process gaps, or ownership would stop an AI initiative before it starts
Week Three
Sequence it, and hand it over
The opportunities ranked by business impact against effort, with the honest version of what each one costs and what it depends on. Delivered as a working session with leadership, not a document dropped in an inbox.
- Prioritized opportunity list, each with effort, impact, and prerequisites
- An explicit list of what to defer, and why
- 90-day action plan, sequenced so each step makes the next one cheaper
- Live readout with leadership, and the written roadmap is yours to keep
What You Own Afterwards
A document you could hand to somebody else
That is the test. If the roadmap only works with us attached to it, it is a sales instrument rather than a plan. Everything below is yours outright, including if you decide to stop here.
The Deliverable
Fit
When this is worth $5,000, and when it is not
Being direct about this saves everyone a discovery call.
Worth doing
- $10M–$100M in revenue, with real operational complexity
- Leadership agrees AI matters and disagrees about what to do first
- You need a decision-grade answer before committing budget or headcount
- SaaS tools in place that are not delivering their full value
- Manual processes consuming people you pay a lot for
- Nobody internally whose actual job is to own the question
Not worth doing
- You already know what to build and need hands, not a decision
- The goal is a document for the board rather than a change in operations
- Nobody on the leadership team can commit interview time in the three weeks
- The real constraint is organizational, and technology is not the lever
- You want a vendor recommendation, which is a shorter and cheaper conversation
After The Assessment
Three doors, and one of them is walking away
You can run the roadmap yourself, which some clients do and which is a perfectly good outcome. You can bring us back to execute specific pieces. Or you can move to an ongoing Fractional CIO / CTO retainer, in which case the full $5,000 credits against your first month.
The credit exists so the assessment is not a toll booth. It should be the cheapest way to find out whether working together makes sense.
Next Step
Start with thirty minutes
Before anyone commits to three weeks, a short call to confirm this is the right engagement. If it is not, you will hear that on the call.