Almost every enquiry starts the same way: “can you just give us a number?” It’s a reasonable question, and the honest answer is no — not responsibly, and not in a way either of us could hold the other to later.

A fixed price for a build has to be measured against something. Without a Diagnostic, that something is a guess — about hours, about scope, about what is actually broken. The Diagnostic replaces the guess with a baseline taken from your own data and agreed in writing before any build is proposed.

01. What a number without measurement actually is

A price quoted before anyone has mapped the workflow is built on assumptions nobody has tested: how many exceptions the process really has, how much of the “routine” work is actually routine, how many systems genuinely need to talk to each other. Any of those assumptions being wrong by even a modest margin changes the real cost of the build substantially.

That is not a hypothetical risk unique to us — it is the standard failure mode of software estimation generally, which is exactly why the Standish Group’s long-running research into project outcomes keeps finding the same pattern: projects scoped without a proper discovery phase overrun far more often than those that measure first.

02. What the Diagnostic actually does

One workflow, mapped end to end — from the moment a request arrives to the moment the deliverable is issued. On top of that map, two things:

  • A measured baseline. Expert time, volume, rework and delay quantified against assumptions you agree with us in advance, not assumptions we impose afterwards.
  • Written acceptance criteria. Drafted and put in writing, so “does this work” has a specific, checkable answer rather than a general impression.

Full detail on scope and price is on Pricing; the sequence it sits in is laid out stage by stage on How It Works.

03. The output belongs to you either way

The Diagnostic isn’t a sales exercise dressed up as consulting. Its output is a decision document — the map, the measured baseline, the written acceptance criteria, and a scoped build proposal at a fixed price. If you take that document and build the system yourself, or with someone else, or not at all, it still did its job. That is a deliberate design choice: if the Diagnostic can’t stand on its own as useful, charging for it wouldn’t be honest.

04. The guarantee that makes this credible

If the Diagnostic cannot evidence recoverable value worth at least three times its own fee — calculated from data and assumptions agreed with you in advance — we do not invoice it. That threshold is decided by the criteria written down before the work starts, never by our judgement afterwards. It is the mechanism that keeps “we measure first” from being a nice-sounding policy with no teeth behind it.

05. Frequently asked questions

Can we skip the Diagnostic and go straight to a build?

No. A build priced without a measured baseline is one neither of us can hold the other to. The Diagnostic is what makes the fixed price, the acceptance criteria and the guarantee possible.

Is the Diagnostic fee deducted from the build price?

No. It is a piece of work with its own output — a decision document you own and can act on with us, with someone else, or on your own.

How long does a Diagnostic take?

It depends on the workflow’s complexity. The fit call establishes whether one is justified before any timeline is discussed.

Bring one workflow. The fit call is free, and it tells you honestly whether a Diagnostic is worth doing — discuss one workflow →