Step four · Standing help
Someone owns it, and works the next one.
Monthly, three month minimum. Somebody keeps it running when the source systems change, and starts on the next decision down the list.
What it is
Source systems change. Somebody has to notice.
Monthly. Somebody owns the thing you built, keeps it running when the source systems change, and works the next decision down the list. This is also where governance sits, so you have a written policy and a register instead of eleven people quietly pasting customer data into a chatbot.
A CRM field gets renamed, a bid board changes its export, a vendor deprecates an endpoint. None of that announces itself, and a system nobody owns degrades quietly until the person who relied on it goes back to doing the work by hand. The retainer exists so that does not happen, and so the second decision on your list gets worked without a new engagement each time.
- Price
- $3,500 to $7,500
- Terms
- Per month
- How long
- Three month minimum
What you get back
- Monitoring and upkeep of live systems
- The next decision on the list, worked
- AI use policy and a tool register
- A quarterly go or no go review
Governance
A policy and a register, not a slide
A written policy for what your team may and may not put into an AI tool, and a register of which tools are actually in use and who owns each one. It is the difference between having an answer when a customer asks how you handle their data and finding out that eleven people have been pasting it into a chatbot.
The review
A quarterly go or no go
Every quarter we put the systems, the hours they were supposed to free and what actually happened in front of you, and you decide whether the retainer continues. We would rather have that conversation on a schedule than have it come up as a surprise on an invoice.
Questions
Before you ask
What does standing help cover month to month?
Somebody owns the system you built and keeps it running when the source systems change underneath it, which they will. The rest of the month goes to working the next decision down the list from your line map, so the ladder keeps moving without a new engagement each time.
Why is there a three month minimum?
Because the first month is mostly taking ownership and the second is where the next decision starts to move. Anything shorter bills you for the handover and stops before the part that pays for itself.
Do we need standing help after a build sprint?
No. Plenty of teams take the sprint, own the system themselves and never come back, and that is a fine outcome. Standing help is for companies that do not have someone who wants to own it, or who have more decisions on the list and would rather keep going.
What is the AI use policy and tool register?
A written policy for what your team may and may not put into an AI tool, and a register of which tools are actually in use and who owns each one. It exists so you have governance on paper instead of eleven people quietly pasting customer data into a chatbot.
Talk to us
Already built something that nobody owns?
Standing help does not require that we built it. If you have automation running that works until it does not, and no one whose job it is to notice, that is the same problem and we can pick it up.