The free assessment.
Two calls, one per company, no deck. You leave with a readout (a short written document you can forward) that says what's worth fixing, what you can fix yourself, and what I'd charge for the rest.
Two calls and a readout.
The first call is for understanding. The second is where I show you what I found, on your actual files.
- 01Discovery call45 minutes
You walk me through the work: who does what, where the hours go, what you've already tried. I'll ask for the things listed below. If you have a codebase, I'll also ask for read-only access.
- 02Between the callsmy time, not yours
I go through what you've shared. For a repo that means reading the code, the tests, the deploy setup, and the last few months of changes. For everything else it means tracing one recurring task from start to finish and counting the steps.
- 03The readout60 minutes
I show you what I found, on your files. Three lists: what's genuinely wrong, what you can fix yourself this month for free, and what I'd propose to do with you, scoped, with a price.
Bring the real thing.
- Two or three real examples of the work that eats time: last month's board report, the grant spreadsheet, the intake form. The actual files, not descriptions.
- The list of tools you pay for, and who owns each login.
- A screen-share of one recurring task, start to finish, on the first call.
- Brand or voice materials, if they exist.
- A one-line “who does what.”
- Read-only access to the repository.
- Whoever knows how it deploys, on the first call.
- Anything you've already written down about what's broken.
A readout you can forward.
Bottom line first, so whoever only reads the bolded lines reaches the right conclusion. Then three lists. Here are redacted excerpts from two real ones: a team with no engineers, and a team with a codebase.
- 01A written readout you can forward.
Bottom line first. If someone only reads the bolded lines, they'll reach the right conclusion.
- 02A punch list you can do yourself.
Safe, reversible, no engagement required. Things your own tools can carry this month.
- 03A scoped proposal, if there's paid work worth doing.
Phases, exit criteria, price. If there isn't, I'll say so.
The short version: the hours aren't going to the mission. They're going to moving numbers between reports.
- What's genuinely wrong
- Every department consolidates its reporting numbers by hand, and no one owns the whole picture. Staff already use AI tools, with no shared rules about which ones, on what data, or who decides. There is no engineering staff, so anything that needs one to keep running will stop running.
- What you can fix yourself, free
- Write the rules first: which tools are allowed, what never goes into them, who approves a new one. Then pick one recurring report and agree on a single owner for each number. Neither step needs a tool.
- What I'd propose
- Governance across every department before any build. Then the reporting consolidation as plain automation, no AI in it, followed by skills that carry your brand voice. All of it run by your staff. Scoped per phase.
The short version: the best thing you've built isn't shipping.
- What's genuinely wrong
- 346 independently verified records reach zero users. The public site still serves the earlier, unverified content because the last stage of the pipeline was never built. Around it: 1,300+ tests that run nowhere, and about 15 recent merges that bypassed review.
- What you can fix yourself, free
- Wire the tests you already have into CI and turn on branch protection. Pin your dependencies. Harden the public form. All of this is safe, reversible, and yours to do this month.
- What I'd propose
- Phase 1, two weeks: guardrails and the form. Then a rebuild where the verified corpus is the only content layer, and a pipeline you run solo. Priced per phase; you decide at each gate.
One per company.
Read-only: I don't push code or change settings during an assessment. Everything you share stays confidential, and I won't name you anywhere without written consent. I'm one person, so I run a few of these a month. If I'm booked, I'll tell you when.
Book the first call.
Happy to answer questions before you book. Email works too.