Working together
How an engagement actually runs.
Seven states, from the first message to the handover. Each one says what goes in, what comes out, who owns it, what proves it finished, and what happens when it doesn't.
As of 18 September 2026
Most agencies describe this as a process diagram with five friendly arrows. The useful version is less flattering: it names the point at which each stage can stall, who is holding it when it does, and what you would see that tells you it has.
Everything below is run by a person against a written checklist. There is no client portal and no workflow system. Where something is automated we say so; where it is a person with a list, we say that instead.
The seven states
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State 1
Inquiry received
Someone books a call, sends a teardown, asks for a build introduction, or emails directly.
- Input
- The submission or message, its source, and whatever consent came with it.
- Output
- A logged inquiry with source, consent state, what was asked for, an owner and a dated next action.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Intake — Nouman accountable
- Decision owner
- Nouman
- How you know it finished
- A row in the inquiry log with all six fields filled and a next action carrying a date.
- When it goes wrong
- If an inquiry has no usable reply address, it is logged and closed as unreachable rather than left open.
Published commitmentA teardown is marked up in writing within 5 business days, and if that cannot be met we say so before day 5 with an honest date (/teardown, Terms).
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State 2
Fit assessed
An inquiry has been logged and a conversation has happened or is scheduled.
- Input
- What the company sells, who they think their buyer is, what outreach exists today, and what data they hold.
- Output
- A completed fit worksheet: the problem, the candidate buyer, what we would exclude, what data exists, and an accept or decline.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Fit assessment — Nouman accountable
- Decision owner
- Nouman, and the prospect, independently
- How you know it finished
- A signed-off fit worksheet with a written accept or decline, and the reason recorded either way.
- When it goes wrong
- A decline is a normal outcome and is recorded with its reason. The four "not right for you if" cases on /how-it-works are the usual ones.
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State 3
Scope agreed
Fit assessed and accepted by both sides.
- Input
- The fit worksheet, and the stage the client wants to start at.
- Output
- A proposal and a statement of work carrying the same terms: deliverables, fee, the at-risk split, the qualification definition, dates, responsibilities and signature status.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Commercial — Nouman accountable
- Decision owner
- The client. Nothing starts before signature.
- How you know it finished
- A countersigned SOW with every field populated. An unsigned SOW keeps the engagement in this state.
- When it goes wrong
- If the qualification definition cannot be agreed in writing, the pilot does not start. There is no version of this where "qualified" is left to be settled later.
Published commitmentThe at-risk split and the threshold are set in writing before signature (Terms §3.2).
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State 4
Onboarding complete
SOW countersigned.
- Input
- Access to the systems named in the SOW, and the client inputs it lists.
- Output
- A kickoff record, an access and data inventory, the agreed data boundary, the baseline, and an approved initial plan.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Delivery — Nouman accountable
- Decision owner
- The client approves the initial plan and the baseline.
- How you know it finished
- The access inventory lists every system with who granted it and when; the baseline is written down and acknowledged by the client in writing.
- When it goes wrong
- A missing input pauses the clock on anything that depends on it, and the pause is recorded against the deliverable it blocks, with the date it started.
Published commitmentSending runs from separate secondary domains, never the client’s primary domain (Terms §6).
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State 5
Work in progress
Onboarding complete and the initial plan approved.
- Input
- The approved plan, the target list, and message approvals as they arrive.
- Output
- The named deliverables, plus a weekly report with every rate against its denominator.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Delivery — Nouman accountable
- Decision owner
- The client accepts or rejects each deliverable.
- How you know it finished
- Each deliverable has an owner, a due date, an acceptance state and a date of acceptance. A deliverable with no acceptance state is not done.
- When it goes wrong
- A missed deliverable date is reported in the weekly report in the week it is missed, not at the end. Terms §3.3 attaches a pro-rata refund to it.
Published commitmentNamed deliverables by named dates; a miss is a pro-rata refund for that deliverable (Terms §3.3). Every result is reported with its denominator.
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State 6
Review or exception
A result is in against the written definition, or something has gone wrong.
- Input
- The measured result, the written threshold, and any change request or missed commitment.
- Output
- A decision record: the result against the definition, what changes, who owns the change, and when it is reviewed again.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Review — Nouman and client accountable
- Decision owner
- Nouman proposes; the client decides whether to continue.
- How you know it finished
- A dated decision record naming the decision, the owner and the next review date. The at-risk refund, if triggered, is processed on the threshold alone and does not wait for agreement about the cause.
- When it goes wrong
- An escalation goes to Nouman, because there is nobody above Nouman. That is stated plainly rather than dressed as an escalation path.
Published commitmentIf the pilot misses its threshold, the at-risk portion is refunded (Terms §3.2).
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State 7
Renewal or handover
A stage has ended, or notice has been given.
- Input
- Everything built during the engagement, and its location.
- Output
- Either an agreed next scope, or a handover pack: the transfer inventory, confirmation that our access has been removed, what we retain and for how long, and any outstanding items.
- Role, and who is answerable
- Handover — Nouman accountable
- Decision owner
- The client confirms receipt of the handover.
- How you know it finished
- A countersigned handover pack, and an access-removal line for every system in the access inventory with the date it was removed.
- When it goes wrong
- Outstanding items are listed in the handover rather than quietly dropped. A handover with unresolved items is still a handover; a handover that hides them is not.
Published commitmentEverything built is the client’s from day one, in their own accounts, and leaving produces a written handover (Terms §5).
What we need from you, and what we can't do
Three things from your side carry the at-risk refund: approving messages and lists on time, agreeing the target list with us, and following up on the conversations we hand over. Those are in Terms §4, and they are obligations rather than requests because the refund depends on them.
Beyond that, here is the honest account of what this firm can actually support today:
Is there a client portal?
You receive written reports and a named contact. Access stays in your own systems, with an inventory and a recorded removal date at handover.
What is automated?
Sending and list refresh are automated inside the tools an engagement uses. The operating side of this — intake, fit, approvals, decisions, handover — is run by a person against written checklists. Where automation does not exist, the checklist names the person and the procedure instead of implying a system.
Who does the work, and who is answerable for it?
The demand work is done by a founder-led team. Nouman, the founder, is accountable for every Scipioform-side role above, and is the person you deal with directly. Your proposal names the people responsible for the agreed work and the approvals needed from your side.
What happens to our data?
The access and data inventory records every system we are given access to, who granted it and when, and the handover records the date each was removed. Retention of anything we hold is a manual step Nouman owns; it is not enforced by any system, and we say so rather than implying automatic deletion we do not operate.
Has this been run end to end?
Not yet, with a paying client, on these written states. We rehearsed the whole sequence on an invented engagement — including a scope clarification, a missing client input, an assumption that turned out to be false, and a handover — to check that the documents reconcile and that each state can actually be closed with the evidence it claims. That rehearsal found four problems, which are fixed, and it is recorded rather than described.
What it does not do is prove capacity. A rehearsal shows the documents hold together; only a real engagement shows that they hold up while the delivery work is also being done. We will say which of these states has been operated for real as soon as one has been.
The reporting example is what state 5 and state 6 produce, written out in full.