Oakes Consulting
What I do
Four things. Any one of them on its own.
Most organizations do not need all of this. They need one part of it, done properly, and then to be left alone to run it.
01
Operational Diagnosis
An honest read of how the work actually runs, not how it is supposed to. Sitting in the meetings, going through the systems, and coming back with what is really happening and what it is costing you.
- Operational diagnostic
- Risk, security and access review
- Maturity assessment
- Baselines and measurement
02
Process and Policy Design
What to start, what to stop, and what to keep. Written down in a form people will actually follow, with a name attached to every step and a decision about who owns it.
- Process design, one process at a time
- Roles, ownership and decision rights
- Policy and procedure libraries
03
Systems, Automation and AI
The software you already pay for, configured to do the job. First I work out whether the problem is the tool or the way it is being used, because it is usually the second one and replacing software you have only just learned is an expensive way to find that out. Then the manual steps come out, because every hand-off is somewhere the work can quietly stall. These days that includes AI, put to work on the mechanical parts and kept out of the human ones; there is a whole page on where it belongs.
- Platform configuration
- Custom tools where nothing off the shelf fits
- AI training, implementation and use policy
- Communications architecture
- Websites and digital presence
- Automated workflows
- Reporting, dashboards and the data behind them
04
Handover and Training
Your team owning it, not depending on me. This is a category rather than a closing paragraph on purpose: almost every firm promises capability transfer somewhere in its copy, and almost none sells it as a line item you can point at.
- How-to guides written for whoever holds the job next
- Training on the real system, not a demo of it
- Coaching through the first cycles that go wrong
- A protocol for changing what was built, without me
- A check after I have gone
These are not a package
They are listed in the order they usually happen, but they are bought separately. Plenty of organizations already know what is broken and want only the third one. Some want a diagnosis and nothing further, and take the findings to their own team.
They are also connected. If one part of this is not working there are usually signs in the others, and I would rather check than assume. That check is part of the first conversation, and it is just as likely to end with me saying you only need the one thing.
If you want to see how they fit together when they are bought together, that is on how it works.
Not sure which of these you need?
That is a normal place to start, and it is usually the first conversation rather than a problem to solve before having it.