A clear plan for your next stage of growth.
Your product is growing, and you need to decide what comes next: more people, different skills, better ways of working, or more funding. You want to understand what will make a difference before committing.
I assess product and engineering together - from deciding what to build through delivering it and learning from the results. You leave with an evidence-based view of what is holding you back and a prioritised plan you and your team can act on.
We’ll discuss the decision you’re facing, whether an assessment would help, and the scope and fee.
Prefer to message me? Drop me a message on LinkedIn.
When this is useful
“We’ve raised funding. Now we need a much bigger team.”
Before opening the roles, establish what capacity you need and how the team should work. That includes where product engineers who own work from problem through delivery, specialist skills, and AI-native workflows fit your business.
“We need investment before we can grow further.”
Test what the next stage actually requires: which growth assumptions have evidence behind them, what scale you are aiming for, and whether your existing team and resources can take you further.
“We keep shipping, but the business isn’t seeing the benefit.”
Examine how priorities and spending connect to revenue, adoption, customer satisfaction, and other outcomes that matter to your business. Identify where the evidence is missing and what should change.
“Everything takes too long, and we don’t know why.”
Trace delays through priorities, ownership, team composition, technical constraints, and daily workflows. Establish which problems to address first.
If your question is specifically about proposed engineering hires, the Hiring-plan second opinion offers a focused review of the roles and their sequence.
Who I work with
Founders of growing product companies, from founders working on their own to organisations of roughly 50 people across product and engineering.
You’re willing to test the plan - including the assumptions you brought to it - and give me access to the people and work needed to understand the situation.
If you have a prototype and no team yet, we focus on the product, customer evidence, technical constraints and the capabilities you need next. For hands-on help with that transition, see From prototype to production.
If you already have a well-supported plan and no significant unanswered decision, we may find that an assessment would add little.
How the assessment works
What I’ll need from you and your team
We start with the decision you need to make, your growth plans, and what you already believe is helping or holding the company back. We also agree what evidence I can access and how we will explain the assessment to your team.
Where a team exists, I gather input through a short questionnaire and selected individual conversations across product and engineering. We agree the approach to fit the team’s size and the decision being assessed. Everyone has an opportunity to contribute and request a private conversation. I speak with people across roles and teams, including existing leaders, and follow up where perspectives differ or important questions remain unresolved.
The questionnaire helps identify patterns and questions to investigate; I check those against conversations and working evidence. For a small team, speaking with everyone may be the most useful approach. If you are working alone, we examine how you build and make product decisions, using the prototype and customer evidence.
I review existing product and delivery evidence, goals and spending, and build a high-level understanding of the architecture. Where useful, I observe meetings you already hold. You should not need to prepare a polished presentation of how the company works.
The assessment runs across several weeks. Before we start, we agree the schedule, the people involved and the expected time commitment. Team members contribute through the questionnaire, selected conversations and targeted follow-up. You and the relevant leaders also take part in an opening discussion and a final working session.
What comes back to you
You receive a decision document explaining the findings, the evidence behind them and a proposed plan for the next stage of growth. It makes uncertainties visible and distinguishes what needs action now from what needs further investigation.
This is an assessment of how product and engineering work together, rather than an individual performance-rating exercise. I bring together patterns from conversations and working evidence. I do not routinely attribute interview comments to named individuals in the report.
Before gathering input, everyone will know how questionnaire responses and interview notes will be used, who can access them and who will receive the findings. In a small team, context can make a person identifiable, so I will not promise complete anonymity. If a finding needs attribution, I discuss that with the contributor before including it.
We finish by working through the recommendations together: what to do, what to stop, who should own it and how you will know whether it is helping. Your team can implement the plan independently. Hands-on implementation is available as a separate engagement.
A deep architecture review is a separate engagement if the findings call for one. The scope, schedule and fixed fee are agreed before we start.
What you receive
A concise decision document covering:
- What is limiting progress, with supporting evidence and the uncertainties that remain.
- What your team needs next: hiring recommendations, skills, ownership, and sequencing.
- What should change in how you work, including priorities, processes, and opportunities to use AI effectively.
- A prioritised action plan: what to do first, proposed owners, and how to judge whether the changes work.
We work through it together in a session with you and the relevant leaders, challenge assumptions, and resolve questions. The plan should be useful whether your team implements it independently or brings in help.
Putting the plan into practice
Implementation is a separate engagement with its own scope and monthly fee. I can lead agreed changes across product direction, team responsibilities and technical execution, working alongside you and your existing leaders. We agree the decisions I can make, my involvement and how we will review progress before starting.
How we can work together after the assessment →
Start with the decision you’re facing
Tell me what is happening in your business and what you need to decide. We can establish whether an assessment would help.