The method
Every engagement runs to a written procedure. Not a philosophy: an actual document setting out what is collected, in what order, what is checked before handover, and where the work stops.
Principles
Four things that are true of every engagement
- The scope is a clause, not a conversation
- What is included and what is excluded are written down and agreed before anything starts. If the scope changes, that is a new number agreed in advance, not a variation discovered at the end of the month.
- Gaps are findings, not failures
- Where a document, a date or an owner cannot be established, the record says so and names what would be needed to establish it. A register that quietly implies completeness is worse than one that shows its holes, because somebody will rely on it.
- Nothing is filled in with a guess
- No inferred dates, no assumed owners, no reconstructed versions presented as found ones. Every entry traces to a document that was actually seen, or it is marked as unestablished.
- The boundary is written into the procedure
- Every engagement has a defined point at which a question stops being about structure and becomes a question about meaning or effect. At that point it goes to your own external adviser, and the referral is recorded.
Sequence
Five stages, every time
The detail differs by engagement. The shape does not, and each stage ends in something that physically exists.
Scope
A conversation to establish what you have and what is missing, then a written scope with the fee, the exclusions and the timeframe. There is no charge for this, and no obligation after it.
Output Written scope, fixed fee, exclusions
Collect
Everything currently in use is gathered from where it is actually used rather than where it is filed, for document work that means sent mail before shared drives, because the drive holds what people saved and sent mail holds what people sent.
Output A working set, with provenance recorded per item
Establish
The collected material is deduplicated by content, reconciled against any external reference that exists, and the differences are marked up in neutral language. This is the stage that produces the uncomfortable numbers.
Output Register, difference sheet, discrepancy schedule
Build
The structure is put in place: one location, one version scheme, an owner named by role, an approval path, and a change checklist for the events that will alter it.
Output The system, with the operating instructions written
Hand over
A working session with your nominated owner, in which they complete one real change unaided. An engagement that only works while the person who commissioned it is still there has not finished.
Output Handover pack, recorded session, named owner
Commitments
Standards that apply to every engagement
These are commitments, not aspirations. Each one is written into the delivery procedure for every engagement.
- Response
- A reply to any enquiry within one business day, from the person who would do the work.
- Written scope
- No work starts without a written scope, a fixed fee and a list of exclusions that you have agreed.
- Fee movement
- The fee moves only if the scope does, only by agreement, and only in writing before the additional work begins.
- Quality gate
- Every deliverable is checked against a written list before handover, including that nothing in it characterises the meaning, effect or adequacy of any document.
- Provenance
- Every entry in every register traces to a document that was actually seen, or is marked as unestablished with the reason.
- Ownership
- Everything produced is yours. The registers, the instructions and the working files are handed over on request, during or after the engagement.
- Referral
- Questions of meaning or effect go to your own external adviser, with the question written up so it is short to answer.
Next step