Access is the critical path
The single most common cause of a slow month one is not technical difficulty. It is credentials. Read access to the ticketing system, a sandbox in the CRM, a service account that can call the HRIS. Every day spent waiting on a security review is a day not spent building.
We start the access conversation before the engagement begins, and we treat the list as a deliverable with names and dates against it.
Mapping the workflow people actually run
We sit with the team doing the work. Not the process documentation, not the manager summary, but the person handling the fortieth ticket of the day, who has three shortcuts nobody has written down. Those shortcuts are the real process, and an agent built on the documented version will be wrong in exactly the places that matter.
Finding the agreed-broken process
Every operations group has one workflow everybody already complains about. That is usually the right first target, not because it is the highest-value on a spreadsheet, but because nobody has to be convinced it is a problem. Consensus is a scarce resource in a ninety-day engagement.
What week one produces
A prioritized workflow shortlist with volume attached, a system access plan with owners, a baseline measurement of the current state, and a named client-side counterpart for each of our three roles. Nothing is built yet. Everything that determines whether the build succeeds is now decided.
Takeaways
- System access is the critical path. Start it before day one.
- Map the real workflow, not the documented one.
- The process everyone already agrees is broken is usually the right first target.