Response to RFP · [Ref. 2024-118]

[Your Company] · [Submission Date]

You said

“We need a delivery partner who can move at pace without putting the programme at risk.”

We heard

That is not one requirement. It is a tension, and the whole programme turns on how it is held. So before we tell you anything about us, we would like to know which side of it keeps you awake.

Section 01 · The fork

Before we go further: what is really at stake?

Choose one. The reframe, the lead case study, the named owner and the commercial framing below all reshape around your answer. You can change it at any time.

Risk

Nothing can slip. You need certainty of delivery, evidence of governance, and a partner who has already been audited.

Speed

The window is the constraint. You need something real in front of users fast, and a team that does not need six weeks to start.

Cost

The number has to survive scrutiny. You need transparency, no surprises, and a case you can defend internally.

Section 02 · The reframe

Reframed for risk

The programme rarely fails outright. It fails quietly, in month seven, after the budget is committed.

So we front-load what usually surfaces late: dependency mapping in week one, a named risk owner per workstream, and a fortnightly evidence pack your audit team can lift without translation.

£2.4M

Typical cost of a programme reset discovered at month seven. [Swap in your own comparable.]

Reframed for speed

The constraint is not how fast we can build. It is how long it takes before we are allowed to start.

So we compress the front end, not the delivery. A pre-cleared security posture, a standing squad rather than a recruited one, and something real in front of users inside a fortnight.

11 days

From signature to first working increment on our last comparable engagement.

Reframed for cost

Agreeing the number is the easy part. Defending it, months later, is where proposals come apart.

So we price in the open: an itemised model you can interrogate line by line, a fixed envelope per phase, and a monthly reconciliation that arrives before you have to ask for it.

94%

Of total programme cost fixed at contract rather than estimated. [Swap in your own figure.]

Section 03 · The approach

How it actually runs

Four phases, twenty-six weeks. Select any phase to see who owns it, what lands, and which risk it takes off the table.

We map the terrain before we touch anything: dependencies, decision rights, and the two or three things that will actually determine whether this lands.

Owner

[Name], Engagement Lead

What lands

Dependency map, decision log, week-one risk register

Risk retired

Discovering an unowned dependency after build has started

One thin slice, end to end, in front of real users. Not a prototype. A working increment that proves the riskiest assumption first.

Owner

[Name], Delivery Lead

What lands

A working increment in a production-like environment

Risk retired

Building six months of the wrong thing

Fortnightly increments against a visible backlog you can reprioritise at any point. No black box, and no big reveal at the end.

Owner

[Name], Technical Lead

What lands

Fortnightly release, open backlog, running cost view

Risk retired

Scope drift arriving as a change request you did not expect

We make ourselves unnecessary on purpose: runbooks, paired handover, and a support taper your team sets the pace of.

Owner

[Name], Service Lead

What lands

Runbooks, a trained team, a tapered support agreement

Risk retired

A dependency on us that nobody planned for

Section 04 · The proof

Where we have done this before

Closest match to your focus · Risk

Twenty-six weeks of a regulated programme delivered with zero missed governance gates.

Audited twice mid-flight, no findings raised. Full detail in Case 01 below.

A regulator-facing asset programme that had already slipped twice before we were brought in.

We rebuilt the governance rhythm first and the system second. Every gate had a named owner and a standing evidence pack, so the two mid-flight audits took days rather than weeks. [Replace with your own comparable engagement.]

Weeks, start to handover

Governance gates cleared, none missed

A consumer platform with a fixed launch window and no room to recruit a team first.

We started with a standing squad and a pre-cleared security posture, so week one was build rather than onboarding. The first increment reached real users in eleven days and public beta followed at week nine. [Replace with your own comparable engagement.]

Days to first working increment

Weeks to public beta

A public service rebuild where the budget had to survive a committee, twice.

Every cost line was published to the client monthly, in the same format their finance team already used. Nothing needed reconstructing at year end, and the programme closed under its fixed envelope. [Replace with your own comparable engagement.]

Under the fixed envelope at close

Monthly reconciliations, all on time

In their words

“They did not tell us what we wanted to hear.

They told us which of our own constraints

actually mattered, and then they built

the whole plan around that one thing.”

[Client name], [Role], [Organisation]

Section 05 · The team

Four people, and what they carry

These are the people who will be on the work, not the people who sold it. Select any of them for the specific reason they are here.

[Name]

Engagement Lead

Ran the programmes in Case 01 and Case 03. Your single point of escalation, and the person who answers the phone.

[Name]

Delivery Lead

Has stood up eleven squads from a cold start. Owns the week-one plan and the fortnightly rhythm after it.

[Name]

Technical Lead

Built the integration layer Case 02 still runs on. Reviews every release personally before it ships.

[Name]

Commercial Director

Writes the cost model in the next section, and sits in the room when your finance team takes it apart.

Owns your focus · Risk

[Name], Delivery Assurance Lead

Fifteen years of regulated delivery, including two programmes audited mid-flight. She writes the evidence pack herself rather than commissioning it.

Section 06 · Commercials

The same number, three ways

Choose the framing you will have to defend internally. The total does not change, only the way it is cut. All figures below are illustrative; replace them with your own model.

£1.86M

Fixed envelope, twenty-six weeks, inclusive of assurance and transition

Delivery team, twenty-six weeks

£1,240,000

Discovery, assurance and governance

£310,000

Transition and support taper

£310,000

No day rates. No time and materials. One envelope, and we carry the overrun.

4 gates

Each phase separately terminable. You are never committed past the next gate.

Phase 01 · Frame · weeks 1–2

£96,000

Phase 02 · Prove · weeks 3–6

£268,000

Phase 03 · Build · weeks 7–20

£1,090,000

Phase 04 · Embed · weeks 21–26

£406,000

Same total. Cut so you can approve it one gate at a time.

£71.5K

Per delivery week, all in. Framed the way a business case is usually written.

Per working increment delivered · 13 increments

£143,000

Per user-facing release · 8 releases

£232,500

Per governance gate cleared · 14 gates

£132,900

Same total again. Expressed as unit economics, if that is the argument you have to win.

Section 07 · The close

You told us the risk is what matters

So our answer is a named owner on every gate, evidence you can lift without translation, and trouble surfaced in week one rather than month seven.

One next step

Ninety minutes with the four people above, before you shortlist.

Book the session

Compliance matrix

No focus selected