Every engagement across our four practices runs on the same delivery method — standards-based rather than proprietary, documented rather than tribal, and built from the outset to be handed back. This page sets out exactly how, so you can judge it before you buy it.
We deliberately build on published frameworks rather than a proprietary ClayDesk method. Our data work follows DAMA-DMBOK 2.0. Our programme work follows PMI/PMBOK and PRINCE2 conventions, in whichever hybrid your organisation already runs. Our security posture is ISO 27001:2022 and ISO 22301:2019, certified and audited.
The reason is practical rather than ideological. A standards-based engagement is one your auditors already recognise, your regulator already accepts, and your future hires already know how to run. A proprietary method creates a dependency on the consultancy that authored it — which is good for the consultancy and bad for you.
The second principle is that we staff engagements with senior practitioners. You are not buying a methodology applied by junior consultants under remote supervision; the person on your call is the person doing the work.
A free thirty-minute call with a senior practitioner, followed by a written, fixed-fee scope within one business day. If we do not think the engagement is right, we say so on the call rather than after the invoice.
Before delivery work begins, the machinery exists: named owners, decision rights, cadence, RAID log, and a reporting pack. On programme engagements this produces a live dashboard and a first steering pack within fourteen days.
Delivery runs to the cadence agreed at mobilisation. Status reporting states date confidence, decisions required, and what slips if they are not taken — rather than a list of what people did last fortnight.
Every engagement ends. What you keep is everything: integration code, cryptographic keys, dashboards, templates, documentation, and the running routine — transferred, not licensed back to you.
"Governance" is an easy word to sell and a hard one to verify. These are the specific artefacts a ClayDesk engagement produces, all of which are yours at close and none of which sit behind a licence.
Where you already have equivalents, we adopt yours rather than imposing ours. The point is that the routine exists and is maintained — not that it carries our branding.
Fixed-fee, scoped, with assumptions and exclusions stated. If we cannot quote in that window because the scope genuinely needs more discovery, we tell you that within the same 24 hours rather than going quiet.
Discovery calls are taken by someone who would work on the engagement, not by a sales representative. If the honest answer is that you do not need us, or need something smaller than you asked for, that is what you will hear.
Integration code, cryptographic keys, audit logs, dashboards, and documentation are yours. Exit terms are agreed at contract rather than negotiated under pressure later. We would rather be re-engaged because the work was good than retained because leaving is expensive.
If a date is at risk, you hear it in the cycle it becomes at risk — not at the milestone. A programme office that reports green until the week before slipping is worse than no programme office at all.
Bring us something you are actually trying to deliver. Thirty minutes, free, with a senior practitioner — and a written fixed-fee quote within 24 hours if it turns out we can help.