Published in full, before you buy any of it.

The method

1. 01

   Picture

   What do the economics of this business actually say, and what does its market actually allow?

   We do

   We gather and analyse the evidence, interview leadership and commercial staff, and talk to customers or lost deals where that is available.

   The end state

   An evidenced read of performance — margin, mix, pricing, customer and segment economics, cost-to-serve — set against market, competitive and customer reality.

   Picture is not a financial review. Numbers alone explain the past. The stage is only complete when the economics have been read against the market — that pairing is the whole point of the firm.

2. 02

   Focus

   Where is value or performance being constrained, and what is that constraint worth?

   We do

   We rank by value, say what we are not doing, and put a number against each deferred item so the decision can be revisited honestly later.

   The end state

   A named constraint and a ranked shortlist, each with an indicative value. Everything else is explicitly deferred.

   Focus is not a workshop. Naming one constraint and ranking the rest by value is a judgement, made with evidence, and the hardest political act in the sequence.

3. 03

   Direction

   What has to change, why, in what order, and what is it worth doing?

   We do

   We decide with leadership rather than presenting to it, model the options, write the case, sequence the work and specify who is needed.

   The end state

   A decided direction with the business case, the sequence and the assumptions written down and testable.

   Direction is not a deck. It carries a business case: what the change is worth, what it costs, what it depends on.

4. 04

   Build

   How does that change become operational in this business?

   We do

   We own the direction, select and brief specialists, orchestrate delivery, quality-assure the output and install the cadence that keeps it running.

   The end state

   The change running — whether it is pricing, proposition, portfolio, sales, marketing, organisation, process, technology or orchestrated specialist execution.

   Build is not a commercial pipeline. It is whatever the diagnosis requires. A Build might be a price architecture, a portfolio rationalisation, a repositioning, a new sales model, a marketing rebuild delivered by specialists, an operating cadence, or a process change.

5. 05

   Autonomy

   Can the client run, measure and improve this without us?

   We do

   We document, train, review performance against the business case that justified the work, and withdraw.

   The end state

   Documentation, training, a review rhythm, performance measured against the case — and FiMa’s exit.

   Autonomy is not a goodbye. Ending the dependency is the promise, so it is a stage with artefacts and a date.

The stages are used as plain nouns — “we’re in Focus”, “the Build stage”. No acronym, no trademark symbol, no capitalised system name.