Software consultancy

An outside opinion with the arithmetic attached

We are brought in when a plan needs testing before it is funded, when a system has stopped behaving predictably, or when a team suspects it is paying for capacity nobody uses. The output is always something you can act on.

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Consultancy

What we look at

Analysis, feasibility and the cost of what you already own

Consultancy work at Shift Theory is deliberately narrow: we answer the question asked, in writing, with the workings shown. No slide deck that hides the assumptions on a page nobody reaches.

Systems and data analysis. What the platform actually does under load, where latency comes from, which integrations fail quietly and which reports disagree with each other.
Feasibility studies. Can this be built for that budget, on that timeline, with that team? We give a defensible yes, no, or "yes if you drop these three requirements".
Resource optimisation. Licences, instances, storage tiers and human hours. Most estates we review carry a fifth of their spend in things switched on for a project that finished years ago.
Risk and continuity. Single points of failure, expired knowledge, undocumented access and the recovery plan that has never been rehearsed.

Ways of working

Three engagement models

Pick the one that matches how much of the work you want to keep in house. Moving between them mid-engagement is normal and costs nothing.

MODEL 01

Advisory

A retained technical voice for your leadership team. Fortnightly sessions, review of designs and proposals, and someone to call before a decision rather than after it.

Monthly fee, no minimum term
Written opinions on request
Your team keeps delivery

MODEL 02

Assessment

A fixed-scope review with a fixed price. Two to six weeks of investigation, ending in a report, a prioritised backlog and a walkthrough with the people who have to implement it.

Fixed price, fixed deliverable
Costed remediation plan
Yours to use with any supplier

MODEL 03

Delivery Partnership

We take responsibility for an outcome, not a number of hours. Our engineers work alongside yours, with shared boards, shared standards and a handover written from the first day.

Accountable for the result
Your repositories, your cloud
Exit plan agreed up front

What you receive

Every consultancy engagement ends with the same set of artefacts, regardless of size.

A written findings document, structured by priority and cost
A diagram of the system as it is, not as the documentation claims
A backlog your own team could pick up on Monday morning
A short summary written for people who do not read diagrams

How long it takes

Small reviews are quick because we do not pad them. A typical timeline looks like this.

Week 1 — access, interviews, instrumentation of what is not measured
Week 2 — analysis, option modelling and cost comparison
Week 3 — draft findings reviewed with your team, then corrected
Week 4 — final report, walkthrough and agreed next steps

Ask us something specific

Send the question you cannot get a straight answer to

A paragraph is enough to start. If the honest answer is that you do not need consultancy, we will say so — that reply has cost us work before and we will keep giving it.

Get in touch How we work