Every engagement starts with a diagnostic phase we don’t shortcut, even under deadline pressure — usually two to three weeks of building the real baseline, from general-ledger detail and operational data rather than the numbers already in someone’s deck.
From there, we build a plan sized to what the organisation can actually absorb, not the most ambitious version of the plan. And we stay: most of our engagements include an implementation phase measured in quarters, not weeks, because that’s when a recommendation either becomes real or quietly dies.