A structured approach to every engagement
Three phases, clear checkpoints, and defined deliverables. Our process reduces risk and creates decision points so you're never in the dark about where things stand.
Phase one
Discover
1–2 weeks
We start every engagement by understanding the actual problem — not just the stated requirement. This phase surfaces the real constraints, the political dynamics, the legacy systems, and the success metrics that will matter six months from now.
Stakeholder interviews
We speak with data consumers, producers, and executives to map the real gap between what exists and what's needed.
Current state assessment
Audit of existing pipelines, data models, tooling, and governance maturity — documented and scored against enterprise standards.
Problem framing
Translating business goals into specific data outcomes, KPIs, and measurable success criteria that all stakeholders agree on.
Delivery scope proposal
A scoped plan with phased milestones, resource requirements, and decision points — reviewed and agreed before Design begins.
Discover phase deliverable
Current state assessment document · Problem framing brief · Phased delivery proposal with milestones · Stakeholder alignment sign-off
Phase two
Design
1–3 weeks
Architecture and interfaces are defined before any production code is written. This phase prevents the most common failure modes: misaligned schemas, unclear ownership, and security problems discovered after launch.
Data architecture design
Source-to-serving layer design, modelling approach, and partitioning strategy — documented and reviewed with your team.
Data contracts
Schema definitions, SLA expectations, and producer obligations agreed with all upstream systems before ingestion begins.
Access and security design
Role definitions, row-level security requirements, PII handling rules, and audit logging designed as first-class architecture decisions.
Metric definitions
Draft metric catalogue with canonical definitions, owners, refresh cadences, and certification criteria — aligned with all consumers.
Design phase deliverable
Architecture decision record (ADR) · Data contract templates · Security and access design · Draft metric catalogue · Technical review sign-off
Phase three
Deliver
4–16 weeks
Build, test, document, and hand over. Every deliverable ships with monitoring, runbooks, and a knowledge transfer session. The engagement ends when your team is confident — not when the code is committed.
Iterative delivery in sprints
Two-week sprints with demo and review. Stakeholders see progress and raise concerns early — not at the final handover.
Automated testing in CI
Quality rules, schema tests, and freshness assertions run on every deploy. No silent failures reach production dashboards.
Monitoring and alerting
Every pipeline has monitoring, SLA thresholds, and alert routing configured before launch. Not after the first incident.
Handover as a deliverable
Architecture documentation, data dictionaries, runbooks, and a structured knowledge transfer session with your team. Not a code dump.
Deliver phase deliverable
Production pipeline or model · Test suite with documentation · Monitoring dashboards and alert config · Architecture docs and data dictionary · Runbook for every incident type · Knowledge transfer session
Engagement model
Typical engagement shape
We work in phases — you can evaluate each phase before committing to the next. No multi-year retainers, no surprise scope changes.