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Service · Strategy & Discovery
Taking new engagements · Reply < 1 business day

Plan the platform before you build it.

A short, scoped engagement that turns 'we know we need something' into a written plan: who it's for, what it does, what it costs, and how it phases.

Practice
Strategy & discovery
Output
Written plan
Duration
2–6 weeks
Cost
Fixed, scoped
§ 01 — What’s included

Capabilities, stated.

What you get when this service is part of a Yab engagement. Scoped per project.

01
Stakeholder workshops

Structured sessions with leadership, operations, IT, and the people doing the day-to-day work. We surface the gaps no single person sees on their own.

02
Content architecture

What content exists, what it should be, how it's structured, who owns it, and how editors will work with it. The bones of a CMS that doesn't fight you.

03
User journeys & flows

End-to-end journeys for each audience — customer, patient, admin, partner — with the systems, screens, and decisions mapped out in writing.

04
Technical discovery

Audit of existing stack, integrations, hosting, security, and compliance posture. What's load-bearing, what's a liability, what should be replaced.

05
Phased roadmap

A 6–18 month plan broken into shippable phases with realistic budgets and timelines. You leave with a path you can fund and a way to defend it.

06
Vendor & build/buy guidance

Honest input on what to build, what to buy, and what to keep. We have no resellers and no vendor commissions — the recommendation matches the situation.

§ 02 — Standards

The bar we hold ourselves to.

Operating numbers and posture you can quote back to us. These are commitments, not aspirations.

Output
Written plan
Typical duration
2–6 weeks
Investment, fixed
From $12k
Bias for action
Always
§ 03 — Relevant work

Where we’ve done this.

Real engagements where this service was load-bearing. Click through for full case studies.

§ 04 — Approach

Four phases.
Fixed sequence.

The shape of a typical engagement. Phases overlap on larger projects, but the sequence is the same.

01
Kickoff

Half-day session with the leadership team to align on the question we're actually answering. Scope of the discovery confirmed in writing.

Week 1
02
Interviews & audits

5–15 conversations across the org, plus technical audit of the systems and content already in place.

Weeks 1–2
03
Synthesis

Findings written up. Options weighed. We narrow to a recommended path and the alternatives we considered.

Weeks 3–4
04
Plan & roadmap

Final readout: the written plan, the phased roadmap, the budget ranges, the risks. Yours to take into the next budget cycle.

Weeks 5–6
§ 05 — Industries

Where this work
fits best.

Sectors where we’ve done this service often enough to know the patterns — and the patterns that don’t work.

§ 06 — FAQ

Questions,
asked in advance.

The things people ask before they reach out. If yours isn’t here, send it over — we’ll add it.

If the project is small and the path is obvious, no — we'll say so. If you're staring at a 12–24 month roadmap, an unclear vendor landscape, or a legacy system that nobody wants to touch, then yes, a few weeks of discovery is worth more than the cost.

Discovery engagements start at $12k for a focused 2-week sprint and most land between $15k and $35k depending on the breadth of stakeholders and the depth of technical audit. Quoted in writing before we start.

A written plan (not a slide deck): the recommended path, the alternatives we ruled out and why, the phased roadmap, budget ranges, integration map, content architecture, and the risks. Everything you need to defend the project in your next budget meeting.

No. We'll happily help you go to RFP with the plan, including the parts you should ask other firms about. We bill discovery as discovery — the plan is the deliverable, not a sales tool.

Yes. Discovery often runs alongside an incumbent. If they're doing good work we say so; if they're not, we say that too. Either way the goal is to leave you with a real plan, not a coup.

§ 07 — Start

Plan it before you build it.

One reply within a business day. No sales pipeline. We’ll either propose a path or point you somewhere better.