How I Work

Before we agree on scope, fee, or timeline, we talk through what's actually going on. What are you trying to figure out? What have you already tried? What's the real shape of the problem? I'd rather spend the first hour understanding what you need than trying to sell what I've already decided to offer.

If it turns out I'm not the right fit, I'll tell you and probably point you toward someone who is.

The scope, deliverables, and fee get written down up front. If the work grows or changes, we talk about it before anything changes — not after. I'd rather call you and have a five-minute conversation than send you an invoice you weren't expecting.

The best engagements are the ones where I'm visible, accessible, and embedded in the actual decision-making — adjusting the approach as we learn, surfacing findings as they emerge, treating the relationship as collaborative rather than transactional.

I'm not interested in the consulting pattern of disappearing for three weeks and emerging with a sixty-page deck.

When the work produces written artifacts — a diligence report, a roadmap, an architecture document — they're built to be used by your team, not to impress your board. Most are concise, opinionated, and specific. If a twelve-page memo serves you better than a sixty-page deck, you'll get a twelve-page memo.

I have my own — built over twenty-five years of doing this work. They're tools I use to deliver judgment, not products I'm selling. The output you care about is the judgment. Everything else is scaffolding.

Most engagements move through three rough phases, regardless of size or shape:

A short discovery period — usually one to three weeks — where we get on the same page about what's actually going on, what you're up against, and what the real questions are. This is where most of the value gets created. The rest of the work is only as good as the questions we start with.

The core engagement, where the actual work happens. This looks different depending on the engagement type — a TMS evaluation runs differently than an M&A integration runs differently than an advisory retainer — but in all cases, it involves real proximity to your team, regular communication, and findings surfaced continuously rather than saved for a final reveal.

A handoff or transition phase, where whatever's been built, decided, or recommended gets handed off to your team in a way that doesn't require my ongoing involvement. The goal is for engagements to leave companies more capable than they were, not more dependent on me.