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Nothing to pay.
A discovery week
A fixed fee, credited against the build.
We map what the tool does, which other systems it should absorb, and which rules it has to enforce.
Discovery ends with a written scope, a fixed price, and a recommendation.
A unionized nonprofit of about 90 people used a per-seat performance-review platform. The union contract set rules on response times, anonymity, and appeals that the platform couldn't enforce, so staff tracked them by hand.
The decision
Nothing beyond the discovery fee.
The recommendation can be to build at the fixed price, or to keep the vendor. Under about 40 users, or with fewer than three tools to consolidate, the vendor usually is the right answer.
Work we don't do: own an HR function; financial reporting, accounting, or audit; campaign work.
The recommendation was to build.
- What if the recommendation is to keep the vendor?
- You keep the written scope. You have paid for the discovery week and nothing else.
The build
A fixed price set in discovery, paid at three points.
- Signing
- The written scope and the fixed price.
- Demo
- A working demo on your data.
- Handover
- The system, handed over.
The build took about seven weeks.
Handover
The third payment.
- Repository
- In your GitHub account.
- Hosting
- On your cloud account.
- Documentation
- Written for a non-engineer administrator.
- Training
- Your staff have been trained.
The new system enforces the contract rules, replaced three other tools, and the organization owns it.
- Who maintains it after handover?
- Your administrator, for day-to-day use. For changes, anyone who can read the code.
Afterward
Separate agreements, if you want them.
Maintenance is a separate agreement. You can hire us for it or anyone else.
Some clients want operating help without a build: the annual planning cycle, a budget and cash model, a vendor negotiation, a board memo, a new performance-review process. We do that on a monthly retainer scoped to a set of responsibilities rather than to hours.