What actually happens in a two-week diagnostic

Diagnostics are how every engagement starts. Here is what one involves, what you get at the end, and why we do it before proposing anything.

The diagnostic comes before the wider project proposal so the proposed scope can reflect the business question and available information. Its purpose is to establish a clearer basis for deciding what work is needed.

The shape of a diagnostic

A diagnostic is a fixed-price, fixed-duration piece of work, usually one to two weeks, focused on one area of the business. It has three parts:

Interviews

Structured conversations with the people relevant to the agreed scope, including leadership and those doing the work. Differences in their accounts can identify questions worth investigating further.

Data

Whatever the business already produces: management accounts, sales pipeline, job records, system exports. We are not looking for perfect data; we are looking for the patterns the business has not had time to see.

Walk-throughs

Following real work through the business. For a service company, that means tracing a handful of recent jobs from first contact to final payment. For a product company, an order from receipt to dispatch.

What you receive

• A written findings summary in plain language, with the format agreed in the scope
• A prioritised view of the issues, with estimates and assumptions identified where the information supports them
• Possible next steps, which may include action by your own team or a further engagement
• A discussion of the findings and possible next steps, as agreed in the scope

A diagnostic can stand alone: the business may choose to act on the findings itself rather than commission a further engagement. The next step should follow from the findings and the team’s capacity to act.

Discuss this with us