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Build · Forward Deployed Implementation

One year inside your team. Working systems, and the people to run them.

A 12-month engagement with a consultant embedded in your team, responsible for designing, building, improving and transferring your agentic operating systems — CRM architecture, automations, brains, agents and integrations. Everything is built in your infrastructure, under your accounts, and handed over with the documentation and skills to keep improving it.

Months 1–3 · Foundations + first workflow4–6 · Portfolio7–9 · Reliability + adoption10–12 · Transfer
12months, fixed term
1named consultant, embedded
3starting points
Yourscode, accounts, data, keys
The promise

One year of implementation that leaves you with working systems and the capability to run them.

Most "AI transformation" work ends with a deck, a pilot and a vendor. This ends with workflows in daily use, built in your repositories and accounts, owned by named people on your side, with the documentation and practice to change, monitor and recover them without us. The consultant is inside your team for the year — with your email address, your tools, your weekly rhythm — and works themselves out of the job on purpose.

Design

Operating architecture first

Processes, responsibilities, handoffs, decisions and success measures mapped before anything is automated. A prioritised backlog, not a wish list.

Build

Complete workflows, not demos

Triggers, context, permitted actions, outputs, human review and exception handling — connected to the tools you already run.

Transfer

Handed over, not hosted

Source, configuration, documentation, operating instructions and maintenance sessions throughout the year. Your people run it by month twelve.

The rule the whole engagement follows

Every workflow shipped has a named owner on your side, a baseline it is measured against and acceptance criteria written before it is built. The bookshelves say what has to exist for that to be true; the engagement is the year spent making it exist.

Starting points

One offering, three starting points

Choose one primary starting point and expand through an agreed roadmap. Each maps to one of the three Agentic Organisation playbooks — the shelves guide what needs to exist for each workflow, and the books become the first artifacts.

Starting pointImplementation focusExample workflow
GTM Agentic OrganisationSales, marketing, RevOps and customer success: CRM, account intelligence, campaigns, pipeline and reporting.Account research → qualification → CRM updates → seller tasks → performance review
Agentic OrganisationShared organisational foundations: knowledge, ownership, decision rights, approvals and workflows across departments.Internal request → relevant context → approval → execution → recorded outcome
Product Agentic OrganisationProduct discovery, delivery, growth and product operations, with selected agents inside the team or the product.Customer feedback → evidence synthesis → opportunity brief → prioritisation → delivery follow-up

Not sure which? The first month's assessment decides it with you. Most commercial teams start on the GTM track; most companies that have already automated GTM start on the shared foundations.

Scope

What gets built

Six areas, in roughly this order. Not all of them at full depth for every client — the backlog from month one decides the weighting.

  1. Operating architecture. Map the selected processes, responsibilities, handoffs, decisions and success measures. Turn these into a prioritised implementation backlog.
  2. CRM and data foundations. Configure objects, properties, lifecycle stages, ownership, data-quality rules and reporting definitions. Connect relevant customer, product and operational records.
  3. Brains and shared knowledge. Build maintained knowledge collections containing approved strategy, ICP, positioning, product information, policies, metric definitions and decision history. Assign owners and update rules.
  4. Automations, agents and integrations. Build complete workflows with triggers, context, permitted actions, outputs, human review and exception handling. Connect them to your existing tools.
  5. Production operation and improvement. Deploy, test on representative cases, monitor quality and running costs, resolve failures and improve the delivered workflows.
  6. Adoption and handover. Train the people who use and maintain the systems. Provide source code, configurations, documentation, operating instructions and practical maintenance sessions throughout the year.

The instruments on this site are part of the kit: the GTM Control Room for governed reporting, the Sales Leaders Calendar for the operating rhythm, and the CRM Revenue Growth playbook for the CRM architecture.

Sequence

The year, quarter by quarter

Each quarter ends with something you can review — not a status report, a working thing with a named owner.

PeriodFocusReviewable milestone
Months 1–3Assess the current setup, agree priorities, establish essential foundations and deliver the first workflow.First workflow in use, with a baseline, an owner and acceptance criteria.
Months 4–6Deliver further priority workflows and connect shared knowledge and systems.An initial portfolio of working implementations with measured results.
Months 7–9Improve reliability, adoption and coverage across agreed teams.Internal owners operate the systems with decreasing consultant involvement.
Months 10–12Complete agreed releases, resolve remaining issues and finish the transfer.Your team demonstrates it can operate, change, monitor and recover the systems.
Q1 — foundations and the first workflow in usebaseline set
Q2 — a portfolio, connected to shared knowledge and systemsresults measured
Q3 — reliability, adoption, coverage; owners take the controlsconsultant steps back
Q4 — releases completed, issues closed, transfer finishedyou run it
Embedded

What "inside your organisation" means in practice

Forward deployed is a set of concrete arrangements, not a mood. These are the five.

ArrangementWhat it means
Client identityA client-domain email address, company-managed access and seats in the relevant tools.
Client environmentAll implementation assets live in your repositories, workspaces, cloud infrastructure and SaaS accounts from day one. New interfaces use your domain where applicable.
Client controlCredentials, billing, data, deployments and administrative ownership remain with you. Approved external AI services run on client-controlled accounts.
Embedded deliveryOne named consultant, agreed monthly capacity, a weekly working session, regular demonstrations and quarterly roadmap reviews.
Client participationAn executive sponsor, available system owners and a named future operator. Customer-facing product agents also need an agreed engineering and release owner.
Why this matters more than the build

Systems built in a vendor's account are rented. Systems built in yours, by someone with your email address, alongside the person who will run them next year, are owned. The difference shows up the first time something breaks after month twelve.

Terms

Commercial terms

How it is priced

  • Fixed 12-month term.
  • An agreed monthly fee and defined delivery capacity.
  • Software and infrastructure costs paid directly by you, on your accounts.

How scope is protected

  • Start with one primary track; concurrent build workstreams are limited.
  • Significant additions require reprioritisation or additional capacity — never silent absorption.
  • Support after month twelve is a separate engagement, so the handover is real.
Fit

Is it the right shape for you?

  • Not for a two-week proof of concept — the GTM Audit or a scoped project is the right entry there.
  • Not for organisations that want the systems hosted and operated by us — the whole design is transfer.
  • Not without a sponsor and a named future operator; without them the year ends with orphaned systems.

Forward Deployed Implementation is one of the five ways to work with Revenue Puzzles: Entry (GTM Audit), Project, Fractional leadership, Build (this page) and Run (ongoing support).

Start the conversation

Bring the revenue problem and the team that owns it. Tell me what is going on — I read every message myself, and I will say whether a year embedded is the right shape or whether something smaller fits better.