Fixed scope. Fixed price. Fixed deadline.
We commit to deliverables, timeline, and pricing in writing before anyone signs. If we miss, we eat the overrun. Slots capped per quarter — we turn down more engagements than we accept.
Three engagements
Audit. Roadmap. AI Strategy.
Three packaged engagements with concrete deliverables and fixed durations. No menu of à la carte modules — the scope is the scope.
- 30-DAY AUDIT30 days
Technology audit, board-ready report
Best fit
CTOs and boards who need a defensible read of where their stack and organization actually stand.
Thirty days of senior-led audit. Stack, organization, risk surface, vendor exposure, modernization debt — quantified and prioritized across the McKinsey 7S dimensions. The report walks into your board meeting.
Fixed price + fixed deadline. If we miss the 30 days, we eat the overrun.
- Written audit report (40-60 pages)
- Quantified risk register
- Prioritized 12-month roadmap
- Board-ready presentation deck
- Optional in-person debrief workshop
- MODERNIZATION ROADMAP60 days
Target architecture + sprint sequencing
Best fit
Development teams entering a 12-18 month modernization without an executable plan or in-house architecture authority.
Sixty days to convert your modernization vision into an executable plan. Target architecture, ADRs, sprint-by-sprint sequencing, build-vs-buy decisions, skill-gap and hiring plan. Designed to be picked up by your team or ours.
Designed to be executable. We pass the baton clean — to your team or to ours via /implementation.
- Target architecture diagrams
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs)
- Sprint-by-sprint sequencing
- Build vs. buy vs. partner decisions
- Skill-gap and hiring plan
- MEASURABLE AI STRATEGY90 days
AI strategy with ROI commitments
Best fit
Executives and boards tired of « AI transformation » slideware that produces eighteen months of PoCs and zero measurable outcomes.
Ninety days to separate signal from hype. Use-case prioritization with KPI floors. Per-use-case 12-month ROI target. Build / buy / partner decisions. Vendor risk assessment. Governance framework that survives a regulator visit.
No PoC ships without a measurable KPI. 12-month ROI commitment required — written into the engagement letter.
- Use-case prioritization matrix
- Per-use-case KPI + 12-month ROI target
- Build / buy / partner decisions
- Vendor risk assessment
- Governance + audit framework
Audit framework
The McKinsey 7S framework, applied to tech.
Audits that only look at the code miss what code can't tell you. We use the McKinsey 7S framework — adapted for the technology context — to surface the organizational and strategic layers that determine whether your stack will scale, ship on time, or quietly fail under load. The only McKinsey thing we kept.
Originally formalized by McKinsey consultants in the late 1970s and still standard in operational due diligence forty years later. We adapted the seven dimensions to the questions a CTO and a board actually need answered before they sign the next modernization cheque.
- S1
Strategy
Does the tech roadmap actually align with business strategy ? Build-vs-buy logic, competitive technology posture, modernization priorities, sequencing risk — the strategic layer that determines which problems your stack should be solving in the first place.
- S2
Structure
Org chart, team boundaries, system ownership, decision-making flow, escalation paths. The lines on the wiring diagram that decide how fast and how cleanly any change moves through your organization.
- S3
Systems
Tech stack inventory, data flows, integration points, vendor dependencies, technical debt registry, observability posture. The plumbing — what's built, what's bolted on, what's quietly load-bearing.
- S4
Shared Values
Quality bar, accountability norms, risk tolerance, audit-readiness posture, attitude toward technical debt. The implicit culture that decides whether shortcuts get taken when nobody's looking.
- S5
Style
Leadership style, decision pace under pressure, change-management patterns, how disagreement is handled. The way decisions actually get made — which is often very different from how the org chart says they should.
- S6
Staff
Headcount, seniority distribution, employee / contractor mix, retention risk, single-points-of-failure on critical systems. The human surface — and where it concentrates risk.
- S7
Skills
Capability gaps mapped against roadmap requirements, training depth, hiring posture. The mismatch between what you have and what the next 12 months require — often the silent blocker on modernization timelines.
How we engage
Five steps. No surprises.
Every consulting engagement runs through the same five-step gate, from first call to final handover. Predictable scope, predictable price, predictable deadline.
- 0130 minutes
Qualification call
We screen scope and fit. If we can't help — wrong stage, wrong stack, wrong industry — we say so on the call and refer you out.
- 021 week
Scope letter
We commit to deliverables, deadline, and fixed pricing in writing before anyone signs. The scope is the scope — no change orders unless your scope changes.
- 0330 / 60 / 90 days
Engagement work
Senior experts based in Quebec City execute on site or remote. The same person who scoped the engagement signs the final report. No juniors, no offshore, no handoff.
- 041 week
Deliverable handover
Written artifact + board-ready presentation + walk-through. You own every byte we produce. Source files, raw data, working code — handed over without lock-in clauses.
- 05Per engagement
Execution partnership (optional)
We can deliver the modernization ourselves via /implementation, hand off to your team, or split the work. Your call — we don't push our own build unless it fits.
Who this is for
Four buyer profiles we serve every day.
If you recognize yourself in any of these, we have an engagement already shaped for your problem. If you don't, the qualification call will tell us in 30 minutes.
The CTO who needs a defensible read
Mid-market firm · 100-500 developers · Multi-product
Pain
You know something is off — vendor sprawl, security debt, modernization paralysis — but you can't quantify it for the board or for budgeting.
What fits
A 30-day audit by senior experts who've seen this pattern. Written, quantified, board-ready — not a slide deck of hand-waving.
Engagements
The board-bound transformation lead
Federal department · Regulated enterprise · Crown corporation
Pain
A multi-million-dollar modernization budget is committed but the plan is missing — no in-house architects, no executable sequencing, no ADR discipline.
What fits
A 60-day roadmap engagement that produces target architecture, ADRs, sprint sequencing, and a hiring plan. Your team or ours executes — your call.
Engagements
The executive tired of AI slideware
Mid-to-large enterprise · Regulated industry · Public sector
Pain
Eighteen months of « AI transformation » consulting, three vendor PoCs, zero measurable outcomes. The board is asking for receipts.
What fits
A 90-day AI strategy with per-use-case KPI floors and a 12-month ROI commitment written into the engagement letter. Honest about what AI can't do.
Engagements
The post-acquisition integrator
PE-backed firm · Post-M&A · Multi-entity
Pain
Three tech stacks to consolidate, due diligence surfaced unknowns, and the integration timeline is shorter than the asset-discovery work alone.
What fits
Audit stacked with roadmap — 30 days to see the surface, 60 days to converge it. Same senior team across both engagements.
Engagements
What we don't do
The anti-Big-4 manifesto.
Half of our value is what we refuse to bill you for. Six commitments — written, fixed, non-negotiable — that separate us from McKinsey-style consulting. (We borrowed their 7S framework. We left the rest.)
We don't bill by the slide
Output is working artifacts — written audits, ADRs, executable roadmaps, code. Slides are a side effect, never the deliverable.
We don't hand off to juniors
Senior experts scope, audit, and deliver. The same person you meet on the qualification call signs the final report. No partner-pitch / junior-deliver bait-and-switch.
We don't sell « transformation »
We sell measurable outcomes — risk quantified, architecture decided, KPI committed. « Transformation » is what marketing decks say when there's nothing to measure.
We don't vendor-agnostic-wash
We run Maxor stack ourselves. If it fits your problem, we say so. If something else fits better, we say that too. Honest opinion beats fake neutrality every time.
We don't extend on change orders
Scope, deliverables, and price are fixed at sign-off. If we underestimate, we eat the overrun. Your scope doesn't change unless your scope changes.
We don't outsource the thinking
Canadian senior experts based in Quebec City. The audit team is the delivery team. No offshore juniors interpreting half-translated brief notes.