Services
Operating Diagnostic
The Operating Diagnostic maps how an organization currently operates across its product development lifecycle (PDLC) and software development lifecycle (SDLC), where humans and agents are expending the most effort, and where there are opportunities to make that work more efficient and directly tied to stated priorities.
Over two to three weeks, I conduct structured interviews and workshops with the project sponsor, core decision makers, and key team members across the organization. I review strategy documents, OKRs, GitHub commits, Jira tickets, agent activity logs, and other internal documentation. I map each stage of the lifecycle from discovery and specification through build, review, release, and measurement. I pull signal from everywhere teams and agents work, then synthesize that information to identify key opportunities to remove friction and increase predictability.
Duration: Two to three weeks
The engagement produces the following deliverables:
Process Alignment Map
A visual artifact similar to a heat map that shows where an organization's stated priorities and team effort are out of sync, paired with a stage-by-stage view of the PDLC and SDLC showing which work is owned by humans or agents, and where the two hand off to each other.
Decision Friction Audit
Identifies where decisions are getting stuck, including human review gates that add delay without adding value, how long it takes to resolve priority conflicts, and what those inefficiencies cost the organization's shipping speed and engineering cycles.
Prioritized Recommendation Roadmap
Addresses the gaps in order of impact, starting with systemic issues and any quick wins identified along the way.
contain at least one security vulnerability
report having formal AI security policies
Developers using AI assistants are more likely to introduce security flaws, even while feeling more productive
leak at least some sensitive or confidential data in testing
admit they don't fully track where sensitive data flows
are successfully compromised by prompt‑injection and jailbreak attacks in red‑team tests
AI transformation is 10% algorithms, 20% data and technology, and 70% people, processes, and cultural change.
Build Engagement
Every build engagement begins where the Operating Diagnostic ends. If we haven't completed the diagnostic together, that's where we start.
I scope the build engagement directly from the diagnostic findings, tying what to build, and in what order, directly to a specific finding from the diagnostic. Clients never pay for work that hasn't been specifically tied to a gap identified together.
Build engagements typically run from three to six months dependent upon the diagnostic findings. Before I start on the build, I define the exact scope, timeline, and investment together with clients, identifying what improvements will add direct value, along with a clear plan to scale those improvements as the organization grows.
The build engagement is a mix of structured working sessions, async document review, and time spent in meetings observing how teams work.
Duration: Three to six months
The engagement produces the following deliverables:
30/60/90 Day Plan
Built from the diagnostic findings with clear milestones and measurable outcomes at each stage.
Documented Process Updates
Lightweight frameworks that teams can adapt as they scale, including specs, acceptance criteria, escalation rules, and handoff standards written so that both humans and agents can act on them. All knowledge will be transferred to teams before the engagement closes.
Before-and-After Operations View
Shows what efficiency gaps were filled and who is accountable for outcomes across teams.
Decision-Making Framework
For leadership to ensure future planning and work adhere to organizational priorities, defining which decisions agents make, which they recommend, and which stay with humans.
Frequently Asked Questions
I work with growth-stage companies. This is the stage where the organization is still building toward scale, and the right operational foundation can be put in place before the complexity of growth makes it harder to do. The goal is always to build processes that are optimized for how the organization works today and designed to scale as it grows.
Traditional PDLC and SDLC practices assume that humans read the specs, attend the reviews, and pass work between functions. When agents write code, draft requirements, and review changes, each of those stages needs inputs an agent can act on, outputs a person can verify, and clear rules for when work moves between the two. I define those stages, handoffs, and decision-making responsibilities so that humans and agents operate from the same process and leadership can see where human judgment is required.
I design the operating model: which stages of the lifecycle use agents, what each agent needs as input, where humans review, and how the team measures the result. Tool and vendor selection follows from those decisions and stays with your team, and I advise on evaluation criteria where that is useful.
The Operating Diagnostic runs two to three weeks. If the diagnostic surfaces work worth building, the Build Engagement typically runs three to six months, depending on the scope of findings. Every build is scoped directly from the diagnostic, so clients know exactly what they are committing to before work begins.
A 15-minute call to determine fit. I want to understand the stage of the company and the shape of the problem. If an Operating Diagnostic is the right starting point, we schedule the kickoff. If it isn't, I will do my best to point you in the right direction.
At the start of every engagement, we define success and done together. That definition becomes the measure at the end. The closeout includes documented processes, a decision-making framework, a 30/60/90 day plan with clear milestones and accountable owners, and knowledge transfer to the teams who will carry the work forward. The goal is an organization that can sustain and build on the work we did together, without me in the room.
Often organizations don't know what roles they need to hire for until it's too late. Part of my assessment is determining any roles or skills missing across teams, drawing on my depth of experience across roles, industries, and company stages that has taken years to accumulate. In many cases, the engagement produces the blueprint for exactly who to hire and what to look for in candidates. The build phase often includes writing job descriptions, building a hiring rubric, and interviewing candidates to set up the organization for long-term success.
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