4 ways in. One outcome, measured.
The usual first step is a short paid diagnostic, because the right shape of engagement depends on what it finds. Any of the five services can be bought through any of these models. Scope can be days, weeks or months. What stays fixed is the outcome it is measured against.
Baselined diagnostic
The operation read against its own data, returned as a prioritised plan with the size of the prize attached to each action. The analysis before the mandate.
The usual starting point where the problem is agreed but the cause is not. Often the only engagement needed: the plan is yours to run in-house.
Recovery mandate or defined project
A scoped problem or an account to bring back to plan, at a fixed price, reported weekly against the number agreed at the start.
For a known problem: late deliveries, a customer at risk, a reject rate, a cycle time, an inventory position, an exit liability. Price agreed before the work, so the cost is not a variable you manage.
Interim leadership
A defined mandate held from inside the line: agreed deliverables, an agreed end date, and the authority to change how the operation runs.
Typically as interim Operations Director, Head of Operations, Quality Manager or Continuous Improvement Lead, covering a gap, or holding the line through a recovery.
Retained advisory
Senior access for a fixed 90-day period at a fixed fee, holding the cadence and the numbers after a mandate closes, or before one is needed.
Chairing the review, pressure-testing the numbers, and on call for the decisions that need someone who has done it before. Renewal is agreed before each period ends. Any project work is quoted separately.
Stated plainly
Fees
Commercial terms on request
Quoted once the outcome, how it will be measured and what it is worth to you are agreed. Projects are fixed-price against that outcome, not against days.
How the work is contracted
Engaged through TransFormX Consultancy Limited, outside IR35 where the assignment qualifies.
Chartered Quality Professional (CQP MCQI) and Chartered Fellow of CILT (FCILT). Professional conduct is answerable to both bodies’ codes.
References from previous engagements available on request.
Every figure quoted follows a published standard of proof →
What is free and what is paid
The 30-minute discussion is free, as is reading any data you send before it. It produces no written findings. Work on site, findings you can act on and any pilot are paid. Larger work starts with a short, fixed-price first phase that ends with a stop or go decision, so you commit in stages.
Not sure which of these you need?
Start with the problem, not the contract. The shape of the engagement follows the diagnosis, and it is usually smaller than people expect. If there is a case for a diagnostic, you leave the call knowing its scope and the date of the next conversation.
No pitch and no deck. If it is not something I should take on, I will say so on the call and tell you who should.
Taking on new work now.