Monday note
A short written update every Monday: what shipped, what is next, what is blocked, and anything we need from you. Takes ninety seconds to read.
No black box
in the middle.
The most common complaint about agencies is not the work — it is the silence. Here is exactly what happens, week by week, and what we will need from you at each point.
STEP 01
Discover
Week 1–2
We interview your team, talk to a handful of your customers, review analytics and audit what exists today. Then we write down the single metric this project has to move, and what we are deliberately not doing.
You get: a written discovery brief, a prioritised problem list and an agreed success metric.
We need: access to analytics, an hour each from two or three stakeholders, and honesty about constraints.
STEP 02
Architect
Week 2–3
Information architecture, user flows, technical approach, integrations and a realistic plan with dates on it. This is the stage where we argue for cutting things — usually the features that would have quietly consumed a third of the budget for a fraction of the value.
You get: sitemap, user flows, an architecture document and a sprint plan.
We need: decisions. This is the stage where slow sign-off costs the most.
STEP 03
Design
Week 3–7
Wireframes first, then full interface design and a documented component library. We review in weekly working sessions rather than formal presentations, because feedback given while something is still rough is worth far more than feedback on something finished.
You get: wireframes, visual designs for every template, a design system and a clickable prototype.
We need: one named decision-maker for sign-off. Design by committee is where timelines go to die.
STEP 04
Build & test
Week 5–14
Two-week sprints against a staging URL you can open at any hour. Each sprint ends with a demo of working software. Automated tests cover the paths where a bug would cost you money, and every build runs against a performance budget and a security check.
You get: a working staging site from sprint one, a demo every fortnight and a live board.
We need: content, and earlier than you think. Missing content is the single most common cause of delay.
STEP 05
Launch & grow
Launch week, then ongoing
A rehearsed deployment scheduled outside your peak hours, with a rollback plan we have actually tested. Then analytics verification, team training, documentation handover, and a 30-day warranty on defects.
You get: the live product, full credentials, a runbook, recorded training and a monthly review.
We need: an hour a month afterwards. Launch is when the useful data starts arriving.
Rituals
The four habits that keep projects honest.
Process documents are easy to write and easy to abandon. These four are the ones we actually never skip.
Fortnightly demo
Working software, not slides. Thirty minutes, recorded, and you can bring anyone. If there is nothing to demo, that is a conversation we need to have.
Decision log
Every significant decision written down with its reasoning. Six months later, when someone asks why, the answer is not "I think Marcus said something about it".
Monthly review
After launch, one hour a month reading the data together and choosing the next improvement. This is where most of the compounding value actually comes from.
When things go wrong
Because sometimes they do.
No process survives contact with reality untouched. What matters is what happens when something slips — and we would rather tell you now than have you find out during it.
If we underestimated. If we scoped something badly, we absorb it. You pay what was agreed. This has happened, it will happen again, and it is our risk to carry rather than yours.
If the scope changes. If you want something genuinely new, we quote it separately before starting and you decide. No surprise line items on the final invoice.
If a deadline is at risk. You hear about it the week we see it coming, not the week it arrives, along with the options: cut scope, add time, or add cost.
If it is not working. Either side can end a retainer with 30 days' notice. We hand over everything, help your next team onboard, and do not make it painful.
Questions
About how we run things.
How much of our time will this take?
Roughly two to four hours a week during discovery and design, dropping to about an hour a week during build. The heaviest ask is content and decisions, both front-loaded. Projects that run late almost always do so because sign-off or content stalled, not because engineering did.
What project management tools do you use?
Slack or Microsoft Teams for conversation, Linear or Jira for the board, Figma for design, and a shared document for decisions. We will work in your tools if you have them — it is easier for you and only marginally harder for us.
Who is our point of contact?
A delivery manager owns the schedule, but the whole project team sits in your channel — designer, engineer, strategist. You never have to route a technical question through someone who has to go and ask.
Can we change direction mid-project?
Within a sprint boundary, easily — that is much of the point of working in fortnights. A fundamental change of direction means re-scoping, and we will quote it honestly rather than absorbing it silently and running out of budget at 80% complete.
What happens in the 30-day warranty?
Any defect against the agreed scope is fixed at no cost. That covers bugs and things not behaving as specified. It does not cover new features or changes of mind, which we are happy to quote separately.
Start here
Step zero is a thirty-minute call.
No deck, no pitch team. Just a conversation about what you are trying to do and whether we are the right team to do it.