Retainer / Six days per month
Core
Full ownership of a product or platform area.
Who this is for
A product or platform area needs a real owner: discovery, experimentation, the roadmap, and the stakeholder work around it. This is the seat a VP Product search is trying to fill, covered while the search runs, or instead of it for a while.
per month, net plus VAT. Three-month minimum.
What happens
- Every weekOne and a half days on average, spread as one fixed day plus a half day or the team's planning slot. Discovery sessions, refinement, decisions, specs.
- Every monthGroomed backlog, release-scoped roadmap, decision log, and an experiment or discovery result that changed something on the roadmap.
- Every quarterA written review with the sponsor: what the area delivered against the plan, what we learned, what the next quarter contains.
What you get
- Ownership of one product or platform area, end to end.
- Discovery with customers and data, experiments with a read-out.
- Specs, prototypes and release scope the engineers work from.
- Stakeholder management up to the board or the operating partner.
- Weekly written check-in, monthly decision log, quarterly review.
Terms
Retainers run for a minimum of three months. A six-month commitment reduces the rate by 8 percent, quarterly prepayment by 5 percent. All figures net, plus VAT. Access to your tools and documents from day one is part of the agreement, as is the weekly written check-in. Days are spread across the month, in your cadence.
FAQ
Questions that come up on the first call.
Does Core cover more than one team?
One area, which may involve one or two teams. Several teams or a programme with a hard date is Lead.
How do you handle discovery?
Customer conversations and data, in that order. I run the interviews myself and bring the analytics into the roadmap discussion with context, not just percentages.
What happens when we hire?
I onboard the full-time lead over a few weeks, hand over the decision log and roadmap, and step out. That is the goal from day one.
Not sure Core is the right size?
Thirty minutes and you will know. Bring the product area that keeps slipping.