How we work · Insight to Action
The method, stage by stage
Five stages, each with a purpose, the frameworks that run it, the tools, an output and a gate. Every framework and tool here is published on this site with a workbench you can open now, so the method can be read and tried before any of it is bought.
Stage 1 · Week 1
Scoping
Fit the engagement to the business.
The engagement is fitted to the client before anything larger is bought. It opens with the one-day teardown and closes with a scoping session that settles the brief: the question the audit answers, what is in and out, the sources, who is in the room, the gates and the fee for each later stage. An AI vendor has no spectrum to read and an operator has no model to test, so the brief says which parts of the audit apply and how deep each goes.
Frameworks
- Issue tree: the decision broken into the questions the audit must answer
- Stakeholder mapping: who is in the room and who signs
- RACI matrix: who does what across the five stages
- From diagnosis to first revenue: our own five-stage playbook, which sets the gates
Tools
- The one-day teardown
- The engagement brief template
Output
A two-page brief: the question, what is in and out, the sources, the people, the gates and the fee for each stage.
The gate
You sign the brief, or stop.
Stage 2 · Weeks 2 to 4
The strategy audit
Read the position from the record and your own numbers.
Your market and its dates, your products and where they earn, your technology position, your cost base and what moves it, the rules and the dates that bind the business, and your competitors and what they have filed and said, to the depth the brief set. Every figure carries its source, its date and its evidence class.
Frameworks
- PESTLE analysis: the rules and the dates
- Porter’s Five Forces: the market and where the money sits
- Value chain analysis: where the business earns
- Competitive benchmarking: competitors and what they have filed and said
- VRIO: what you have that others do not
- Unit economics: the cost base and what moves it
- Business capability map: the technology position
- Technology readiness levels: where the technology stands
- Evidence classification: every figure filed, calculated, reported or judgement
Tools
- The AI reading of the whole public record for your market
- The spectrum valuation model and the spectrum position checklist, where you hold spectrum
- The carrier capacity-to-invest model, where the balance sheet matters
Output
The audit memo, 12 to 18 pages with the working shown, and a one-page board summary.
The gate
You accept the memo, or stop.
Stage 3 · Weeks 3 to 4
The register
Every opportunity and threat, scored.
Every opportunity and threat the audit surfaces, written as a hypothesis with the evidence behind it, the revenue or cost at stake, and what it would cost to find out whether it is real. Ranked by that last column.
Frameworks
- Opportunity solution tree: from the question to the opportunities to the ways of testing each
- Risk register: the threats, with likelihood and stake
- AI opportunity portfolio: our own ranking by what it would cost to find out, for any opportunity
- Weighted decision matrix: the ranking made explicit
- Pre-mortem: how each would fail
Tools
- The AI opportunity portfolio model, run on the whole register
Output
The register, ranked by the cost of finding out.
The gate
You pick the opportunity to plan, or stop.
Stage 4 · Weeks 5 to 6
The plan
One opportunity, a business case, the MVP and the pass mark.
One opportunity chosen with you, a business case for it, the MVP defined as the smallest product that tests the case with real buyers, the pass mark written down before the build, and the build plan with who does what and the fee for the build.
Frameworks
- Business Model Canvas: the offer, with a register of the assumption behind each block
- Value Proposition Canvas: the offer against the buyer’s job
- Unit economics: the business case
- Break-even analysis: the business case
- Sensitivity analysis: which assumption matters most
- Build, buy or partner: how the MVP is sourced
- Partnership go / no-go decision record: where a partner is the test
- Minimum viable product: the smallest test with real buyers
- North star metric: the pass mark
- Stage-Gate process: the build plan and its gates
Tools
- The partnership go / no-go record
- The framework workbenches, exported to your own PowerPoint, Word and Excel
Output
The plan: business case, MVP definition, pass mark, build plan and the fee for the build.
The gate
You decide to build, with your team or by Blue Prysm, or stop.
Stage 5 · Weeks 7 to 17
The MVP
Build, test, pass or kill.
Built in weekly checkpoints, by your team with us leading or by our engineers with your product owner in the room, and put in front of the buyers the plan named. The stage ends with a pass or a kill against the mark.
Frameworks
- Lean Startup: build, measure, learn in weekly checkpoints
- AARRR pirate metrics: what the test measures
- Customer journey map: the buyer’s path through the MVP
- Architecture decision record: every build decision written down and handed over
- RACI matrix: the build team, whichever way is chosen
Tools
- The weekly checkpoint
- The test design, with a control and the kill gate written before the first test
- The handover pack: model, code, tests, documentation, data pipeline
Output
A pass or a kill against the mark, the test results, the handover and the next-step plan.
The gate
You decide whether to scale.
Across all five stages
Every figure is filed, calculated, reported or judgement, with its source and its date. The machine reads and calculates; a person chooses the sources, sets the assumptions and signs the recommendation. Everything produced is yours at each gate. The 35 parts of analysis on this site show the standard of evidence the method holds to; the 132 frameworks and the tools are the method itself, open to anyone.
Start with a diagnosis
Tell us what you are trying to decide. We reply in writing within two working days, with how we would approach it, what it would take and what it would cost.