How an engagement usually starts.

Shapes of engagement

1. 01

   Diagnostic

   A short, intensive look at the architecture, the AI plan or security. It ends with a report and a prioritised roadmap. The most common starting point, partly because it is easy to close if going further makes no sense.

2. 02

   Architecture on demand

   Architectural effort applied to one decision, at the moment it appears: system boundaries before a major project, the data model before the first migration, a platform choice before a vendor contract is signed. Options analysed with a verdict against each rejected one, the decision recorded, a retreat path written down. No retainer and no quarterly commitment; the organisation comes back when the next decision worth overseeing appears.

3. 03

   Architecture as a service

   The continuous variant of the same method, for organisations without a staff architect: standards with a lifecycle, review of changes with architectural consequences, decision and dispensation registers, quality gates in the pipeline, presence at the decisions that are expensive to reverse. Billed in days per month; the oversight does not have to justify its existence by producing artifacts, because it is not a salaried post. This is the shape the practice started as.

4. 04

   Ongoing advisory

   A standing presence at the intersection of the board and technology, broader than architecture alone: reviewing decisions, pressure-testing vendors, technology strategy. For organisations that do not need a full-time CTO or are currently looking for one.

5. 05

   Delivery

   Building a system end to end and handing it to the client's team or a maintenance partner. With documentation, decision records and runbooks written alongside the code.