How we work
SluiceWright is a small Australian consultancy. We take on a limited number of engagements at a time, which is the main reason we are careful about which ones. This page describes how an engagement actually runs, so you can judge us on the method before you have to judge us on results.
What an engagement looks like
Scoping call
Before anything is quoted
A conversation about the problem, not the solution. We are trying to work out whether this is something we can finish and whether it is worth doing at all. Free, and it sometimes ends with us pointing you somewhere else.
Fixed proposal
Within a few days of the call
A written scope with a fixed price, a start date and an end date. It states what is included, what is explicitly not, and what we need from your team to hit the dates. If you do not proceed, the proposal is still yours to use.
Week one
The first five days
We spend the first week understanding how things actually work rather than how they are documented. That usually means sitting with the people doing the work. By the end of it you get a short written note confirming what we found and whether it changes anything in the scope.
Delivery
The bulk of the engagement
Most engagements run several weeks, depending on scope the exact timeframe is set in your fixed proposal, not estimated on the day. A weekly written update: what moved, what did not, what we need from you. No status meetings unless you want them. If something is going wrong, you hear about it in that week rather than at the end.
Handover
The last week
Documentation written for your team, code in your repository, and a working session with whoever will own it. We consider an engagement failed if nobody on your side can maintain the result, however well it runs on the day we leave.
Work we turn down
A consultancy that claims to do everything is telling you it has no opinion. These are the things we decline, and the reasons are commercial as much as principled.
Staff augmentation
We are not a body shop. If what you need is an extra pair of hands under your direction, an agency will do it better and cheaper than we will.
Retainers that renew by default
Managed services are a real part of what we do, but they run for a fixed term with a scheduled review at the end of it. Nothing rolls over silently, and you are never paying for a month in which we did nothing.
AI for its own sake
If a process should be simplified, or automated conventionally, we will say so — even when there is a larger project in the other answer.
Certification without the substance
We will not paper over controls to get a business through an audit. It is a short-term pass and a long-term liability, and our name is on it too.
The practical details
- Where we work
- Based in Melbourne, working with businesses across Australia. Most delivery is remote, with on-site time where it genuinely helps — process mapping and audit preparation usually do.
- How we charge
- Fixed price per engagement, quoted after the scoping call and fixed unless the scope changes. We do not bill by the hour, because that charges you for our learning curve.
- Who owns the work
- You do. Code lands in your repository, documentation is yours, and there are no licence terms that make leaving us expensive.
- Confidentiality
- We will sign your NDA. We also do not name clients publicly without written permission, which is why this site does not list any.
Still deciding whether to call?
The scoping call is free and there is no follow-up sequence attached to it. If we are not the right fit, that is usually clear within half an hour.
Book a scoping call