How We Work
Every Cadence engagement moves through five deliberate phases. Each produces a concrete deliverable, runs to a predictable timeline, and is staffed by a lean team led by a partner who stays with you start to finish.
The Engagement Model
We diagnose before we prescribe, design strategy on evidence, and stay through execution until the plan translates into measurable results.
We start by listening. Structured interviews with leadership and frontline staff, a review of financials and operating data, and a competitive scan - so recommendations rest on evidence, not first impressions.
We frame the strategic options, pressure-test each against the data and your risk appetite, and build the financial model behind them. You leave with a defensible point of view, not a menu of platitudes.
The chosen strategy is translated into a sequenced roadmap with owners, milestones, and a board-ready business case - the investment, the returns, the assumptions, and the sensitivities laid bare.
We don't hand over a deck and disappear. We embed alongside your team through the first execution cycles - running the cadence, unblocking decisions, and adjusting as reality intrudes on the plan.
We define the leading indicators up front and report against them throughout, then hand the capability back to your team with the tooling and rituals to sustain it after we leave.
FAQ
Length, pricing, team structure, confidentiality, and what a first engagement looks like.
It depends on scope. A focused diagnostic or strategy sprint runs four to eight weeks from kickoff to final deliverable. A full cycle through implementation support commonly spans three to six months. Ongoing advisory retainers are month-to-month with a 30-day notice period. We structure the engagement to fit the actual work rather than stretching it to fill a calendar.
Most project-based work is priced as a fixed fee tied to defined deliverables, so you know the cost before we begin and the incentive is on outcomes rather than billable hours. Ongoing advisory is billed as a monthly retainer. We do not publish standard rates because scope, complexity, and team composition vary too much for flat pricing to be meaningful - every engagement starts with a written proposal after a scoping conversation.
Cadence runs lean. A named engagement partner leads every project and stays through to handoff, supported by one or two associates and, where your sector demands it, a specialist advisor. You will not be handed to a rotating cast of juniors - the partner who scopes the work is the partner who delivers it.
We provide a standard mutual NDA before the first discovery call, and client confidentiality is a foundational commitment rather than a formality. If your legal team requires a specific form, we are generally able to work with it - raise it before the initial conversation and we will sort the paperwork ahead of time.
Most relationships begin with a complimentary 90-minute diagnostic call in which we pressure-test the problem you are trying to solve. If there is a fit, we scope a focused Discovery & Diagnostic phase - two to three weeks that produces a written diagnostic memo and a recommended direction. That deliverable stands on its own; many clients then choose to continue into strategy design and implementation, but there is no obligation to.
We stay. A strategy that never gets executed is worthless, so Implementation Support is a core phase of our model, not an upsell. We embed alongside your team through the first execution cycles - running the operating cadence, unblocking decisions, and adjusting the plan as reality intrudes - then hand the capability back with the tooling and rituals to sustain it.
Every engagement starts the same way: a 90-minute diagnostic call. No charge, no obligation, and you leave with our honest read on the problem - whether or not you hire us.
