ARC Studio
Figure out what to do. Then ship it.
Studio is the paid work. A scoped review of two to seven weeks, then delivery if you still need us. Built for companies, nonprofits, and teams of about 10 to 500 people — not a staff-aug army, not a slide factory.
How we start
Pick the problem, not a package from a menu.
Each start has a typical duration and a concrete deliverable. Click into any offering to see if it fits, what you receive, and what we can build after.
AI Readiness Audit (C.I.T.H.)
Capability, Intent, Teams, and Habits scored against your real workflows. You leave knowing which bet to fund, which to defer, and what has to change before anything ships.
Starts with
Real processes, real data access, and the people who would have to run whatever gets built.
You leave with
A scored readiness snapshot, a classified automation backlog, and a 30/60/90-day roadmap with owners.
Technical Architecture Review
Program-level review of how your platform is built, where debt concentrates, and what to modernize first. Written for operators and boards, not architects performing for each other.
Starts with
Code, architecture diagrams, deployment history, and the operating constraints you actually have — not a whiteboard fantasy.
You leave with
A prioritized findings list, a modernization sequence, and risks an operator can act on Monday.
Cloud & DevOps Readiness Review
Cloud posture, CI/CD audit, observability gaps, and scalability recommendations. Grounded in how your team actually deploys, not how a reference architecture says they should.
Starts with
Your pipelines, environments, deployment frequency, and the incidents that keep repeating.
You leave with
A CI/CD maturity snapshot, observability gap list, and a sequenced fix plan your platform team can execute.
Data Health & Analytics Readiness
Data flow map, schema audit, quality scoring, and a remediation roadmap. The goal is a reporting workflow your team can run without a heroic analyst.
Starts with
The reports leadership already uses — and the spreadsheets they actually trust when those reports are wrong.
You leave with
A data-trust diagnosis, a sequenced platform path, and the first governed workflow worth shipping.
Security & Compliance Posture Review
Risk matrix, access and secrets review, remediation roadmap, and SOC 2 / GDPR / CCPA readiness notes. Readiness work that tells you what to fix first, not audit theater.
Starts with
Access controls, secrets management, logging, and the systems that actually hold the crown jewels.
You leave with
A ranked exposure list, a 30/60/90 hardening plan, and named owners for the first fixes.
Agent Control Review
Your vendors shipped agent access this year whether or not you scoped it. Warden inventories the agents, tools, and credentials already live, sizes the blast radius, and installs the approval gates and spend guardrails before the next platform update widens what an agent can touch.
Starts with
The agents, copilots, connectors, and MCP tools already running in your stack — including the ones a team switched on without telling anyone.
You leave with
An agent and tool inventory, a blast-radius ranking, approval and revocation gates, and a spend guardrail with a named owner.
AI Solution Concept + MVP Scope
Workflow design, MVP scope, functional requirements, KPI framework, and rollout plan. The output is a build-ready package — not a proof-of-concept that dies in a slide deck.
Starts with
One scored opportunity from Pulse (or your own prioritization) with a named owner and real data access.
You leave with
Functional requirements, architecture sketch, KPI framework, and a rollout plan with human-review gates defined.
Delivery Program Setup
Project charter, milestone plan, RAID log, release checklist, and weekly governance cadence. The unglamorous work that decides whether anything launches on time.
Starts with
Your backlog, release history, dependency map, and the reasons last quarter's commitments slipped.
You leave with
A project charter, milestone plan with owners, RAID log, and a governance cadence your team can run.
Integrated Transformation Diagnostic
Atlas + Pulse + Ridge combined. Full current-state across every dimension that affects whether your next bet ships, then a phased 6–12 month roadmap with named owners and sized risks.
Starts with
Competing initiatives, no shared debt map, and a board asking which bet to fund.
You leave with
A board-ready summary, named owners, sized risks, and a 6–12 month investment sequence.
A scoped start
Most clients begin with a two-to-seven week review. You leave with a plan, owners, and a clear next step.
Delivery if you still need us
If the plan still needs hands on the work, we stay and implement. We size that from the problem, not from a menu.
A workshop when the room is stuck
Sometimes the issue is getting leadership and operators to agree. That's a half-day or two-day session, not a six-week diagnostic.
Ongoing engagement
The stay-engaged layer.
Every diagnostic that lands well should convert into ongoing work. Three-month minimum, then month-to-month with 30-day cancellation.
| Engagement | Best fit | Lead time |
|---|---|---|
| Fractional Head of AI / Transformation· flagship | No senior AI exec in-house; needs strategy, agent governance, vendor judgment, and exec reporting. | 30–50 hrs + agent deliverables |
| Fractional TPM / Delivery Program Lead | Shipping platform work but delivery slips, releases painful, governance missing. | 40–60 hrs + agent deliverables |
| Fractional Cloud / Platform Advisor | Mid-migration, scaling infra, AWS architecture decisions. | 30–40 hrs + agent deliverables |
| Post-Diagnostic Execution Retainer | Natural follow-on after any ARC diagnostic — turn roadmap into delivered work. | Scoped to roadmap |
| Growth & Pipeline Management | Founders / SMB leaders who want warm pipeline without a sales hire. | Agent-driven; senior oversight + intros |
| ARC Partner Retainer (Integrated) | Ongoing transformation partner across strategy, delivery, AI, and pipeline. | 80+ hrs + full agent roster |
How we work
Five stages. We always name which one you're in.
A near-term fix is not transformation. A vision slide is not next month's release. The stage keeps those from getting mixed up.
- 01
Discover
What is actually happening, and what is the real problem worth solving?
- 02
Align
What does winning look like, and how do we size the work to the problem you actually have?
- 03
Deliver
What ships, who owns it, and how does it stay stable in your real business?
- 04
Measure
Is the work producing the outcomes we said it would, against numbers that matter?
- 05
Sustain
How do we keep the results compounding so next quarter is easier than this one?
Work
What shipped, and what it was worth.
Programs our team has delivered in Fortune 100/500 environments, plus ARC Studio. Where confidentiality applies, we name the scale instead of the logo.
Coordinating 300+ features so release investment produced sales, not just shipped code
An enterprise cybersecurity product line where feature volume had outpaced release value. The work was to coordinate 300+ features into a program that improved what actually reached customers — and what that was worth.
Features coordinated
Improvement in release value
Program tied to revenue
Customer-data architecture at tens of millions of profiles
CDP and data-platform delivery for a consumer business operating at Ticketmaster scale: tens of millions of customer profiles, complex enterprise constraints, and a platform that had to hold up under live-event load.
Customer profiles in scope
Enterprise data architecture
Delivery under real load
Brand and consumer programs at global scale
Technology delivery for global consumer brands and live-entertainment platforms — including programs with LEGO and the NFL — where the work had to survive real fans, real events, and real brand standards.
Brand and consumer programs
Live-entertainment programs
Environments the work shipped in
Three competing initiatives, one sequenced roadmap
An Integrated Transformation Diagnostic: three overlapping digital bets, no shared view of debt, and a board asking which one to fund. Five weeks later — one sequenced plan with named owners and an investment order.
Competing initiatives, resequenced
Diagnostic to board-ready plan
Investment sequence attached
How we think
The rules we hold ourselves to.
If a recommendation cannot pass these, we do not ship it. We will usually say so before you have to.
Always name the stage.
Every recommendation tells you which stage of work it is. If we can't name it, we haven't thought about it hard enough.
Don't confuse strategy with deliverables.
A near-term fix is never sold as transformation. A long-term vision is never confused with what we're shipping next month.
Boring beats clever.
A spreadsheet running a real operation beats a custom system that only sort of works. Every time.
Four axes, or it's just a slide.
Every recommendation has to land on business value, risk, feasibility, and adoption. If it lands on only one, it's a slide, not a plan.
Show your work.
Every output names its assumptions, constraints, dependencies, and unknowns. Nobody has time to reverse-engineer how we got there.
Plain language. Real numbers.
"Digital transformation" and "AI-powered" mean nothing on their own. "Cut claim-triage time by 38% with a clearer workflow, better data, and human review on the hard cases" means something. We write the second kind.
Build for the world you're actually in.
Tight budgets. Stretched teams. Uneven technical depth. Results that have to show up soon enough for people to trust them. That is the world we design for, including nonprofits and communities.
Build for the next version, too.
If a system falls over when a teammate leaves or a vendor changes an API, it's a liability, not a system. We build so version two is cheaper than version one.
“Selling someone a build when they haven’t figured out the problem yet is malpractice. We won’t do it, even when the budget says we could.”
Fit
Who we work best with
- Operators in 10–500 person companies, nonprofits, and teams who need a working system, not a slide deck.
- Leaders who want one honest partner across strategy, build, and scale — not a pile of vendors to manage.
- Groups ready to put real data, real users, and real effort behind the work.
Not a fit
When to look elsewhere
- You want a large team staffed next week to take over IT.
- You need a logo-driven RFP response more than an honest diagnosis.
- The problem is still “we should do AI” with no workflow, owner, or constraint.
- You want us to build whatever was already decided, without scoring it.
FAQ
Before the call.
If it is not here, ask it on the call. That is what the thirty minutes are for.
Want this standard of work on your problem?
Most Studio work starts with a diagnostic. A 30-minute call is enough to tell you whether that is the right first step, and what size of engagement the problem actually needs.