Fit brief
Document the audience, current offer, tooling, delivery gap, and desired client experience.
Onboarding readiness
Make the key decisions hold before client-facing delivery begins.
Readiness is visible when scope, identity, access, and exception ownership can carry a representative request from intake to closure.
- Scope holdsIncluded work and exclusions are named.
- Identity holdsIntake and communication represent your firm.
- Access holdsMinimum appropriate access is defined.
- Exceptions holdA partner owner can approve client-impacting change.
Scope map
Define included work, exclusions, environment assumptions, responsibilities, and change decisions.
Identity and communication
Agree how intake, updates, and escalation should represent your firm.
Access plan
Establish the minimum appropriate access and information required for agreed work.
Handoff validation
Walk representative requests through intake, context, routing, delivery, and escalation.
Review meeting
Confirm open decisions and how recurring issues or proposed scope changes will be raised.
Exit criteria
Each stage should leave a decision, not merely a meeting.
| Stage | Useful output | Reason to pause |
|---|---|---|
| Fit | Named audience, recurring gap, partner owner, and unresolved assumptions. | The offer or buyer cannot be described. |
| Scope | Included lane, exclusions, tools, environment assumptions, and commercial variables. | Every request is treated as included. |
| Identity | Approved intake, response, escalation, and client-participation rules. | The teams cannot explain how the client should experience delivery. |
| Access | Purpose-limited roles, authorizers, elevation path, and revocation owner. | Credentials are being used as a substitute for an access plan. |
| Validation | Routine and exception walkthroughs with owners and expected records. | A representative request cannot reach a clear close. |
| Review | Open-decision list, regular review schedule, and scope-change route. | No one owns recurring exceptions or change proposals. |
New offer
Design before promising.
Define client fit, service boundaries, identity, price logic, and exception ownership before the first managed-service agreement is presented.
Choose the intended use case →Existing delivery
Map before moving.
Inventory expectations, open work, access, vendors, and legacy exceptions before changing the team behind the service.
Plan the transition →Prepare safely
Useful context, without sensitive data
Bring a service description, high-level tooling and environment outline, current intake workflow, brand requirements, representative request types, and named decision owners.
Do not send passwords, API keys, tenant exports, private records, or other credentials during initial qualification.
What happens after the first conversation
If the model appears suitable, the next step is an open-assumption list and a decision about detailed scope work. Access, service commitments, and client communication follow the resulting authorization and agreement.