Keep difficult technical choices from slowing your team down.
Your team can do the work, but finding time to weigh every decision is harder. We bring regular senior input on keeping systems reliable, releasing changes and improving everyday operations.
When it helps
When your team needs experienced input on the decisions behind reliable systems and smoother delivery.
Reliability work keeps losing out to the next release
The team sees the problems, but product deadlines make it difficult to decide which improvements deserve attention now.
- Review recurring problems and their effect on the business.
- Weigh reliability improvements against current delivery priorities.
- Recommend manageable changes with a clear reason for doing them.
An important change needs a second pair of eyes
Your team has a direction in mind. A review before they proceed can help uncover assumptions and difficult consequences.
- Review the proposed change and the reasons behind it.
- Discuss its effect on deployments, reliability and maintenance.
- Record questions to resolve and checks to consider before proceeding.
Too many questions wait for the same person
The people doing the work are capable, but senior input is stretched. Decisions wait, or the founder keeps being pulled back into the details.
- Give the team scheduled access to experienced technical advice.
- Work through real decisions and explain the reasoning behind recommendations.
- Help the team build confidence in similar decisions.
The same concerns keep coming back
The same concerns return, but it is hard to track what was decided, what changed and whether the advice still fits.
- Keep brief records of recommendations and agreed priorities.
- Review progress and evidence from changes your team has made.
- Revisit the advice as business needs and constraints change.
Experienced input, connected to the work ahead.
We agree the topics and review schedule around your team's needs, then follow decisions and priorities as the work develops.
Regular reviews and practical guidance.
- Preparation and scheduled reviews of agreed reliability, deployment and operating practices.
- Advice on upcoming changes, using your team's existing plans and available evidence.
- Discussion of options, risks and tradeoffs against business priorities.
- Mentoring for the agreed participants through real decisions.
- Follow-up on agreed priorities and the results your team reports.
Clear advice your team can carry forward.
- Practical recommendations from the agreed reviews.
- Decision notes recording options, reasoning, assumptions and open questions.
- A maintained list of agreed priorities and follow-up actions.
- Guidance and mentoring tied to the decisions your team is making.
Not part of this advisory retainer.
Any further work is optional and agreed separately.
- Implementing changes or taking over day-to-day system operations.
- Emergency incident response or round-the-clock availability.
- Managing the wider IT function, its providers or its delivery program.
How it works
We work alongside the people making and delivering technical decisions, using the plans and context they already have.
Agree where advice will help
We discuss the decisions ahead and the input your team needs. Together we agree the topics, participants, schedule, preparation, availability and commercial terms.
Understand the way your team works
We review the relevant plans, systems and operating practices with your team. We use their knowledge and available records to understand priorities and constraints.
Work through the decisions
In the agreed sessions, we review upcoming changes, discuss tradeoffs and give practical recommendations. We explain the reasoning and record decisions, open questions and next steps.
Follow up and adjust
We return to agreed priorities, review what your team has learned and update the advice. As needs change, we review the focus and shape of the engagement together.
Where would your team benefit from senior input?
An informal 30-minute call to discuss the input your team needs and see whether an advisory retainer would help.