AurValdHow we run fractional engagements.
One design authority across architecture, AI and cost — delivered with a partner where you need build capacity, and paced so decisions actually get made.
Six principles behind every engagement.
Three lenses, one conversation
Architecture, AI and cost trade-offs are the same trade-off. We look through all three in every decision.
Senior-led, start to finish
The person you meet leads the work and stays accountable for the design. Implementation may involve our delivery partner or your own team; design authority stays with us.
Independent of build hours
We aren't paid by implementation effort, so it doesn't shape our recommendations.
Practitioner-tested
We recommend patterns we have designed and delivered ourselves, not patterns from a slide deck.
Decisions in weeks, not quarters
The Rapid Review takes two weeks and design authority runs on a weekly rhythm. Long, open-ended engagements are a failure mode.
Every deliverable is decision-shaped
Each output ends in a recommendation, the trade-offs behind it and the alternatives we rejected.
Architecture, AI and FinOps, looked at together.
Where the three overlap is where single-discipline advice leaves gaps. Architects approve a design and discover its run cost months later. AI advisors pick models without seeing the cost of serving them at volume. FinOps advisors optimise bills they can't influence upstream.
We make one recommendation with the three-way trade-off explicit — and revisit it as scale changes.
Four stages, each a separate decision.
Most clients start with a Rapid Review. Each stage stands alone commercially; nothing rolls on automatically.
Rapid Review
A one-area diagnostic: written report, read-out and 90-day plan.
Design Authority
A weekly rhythm in which AurVald holds the cross-cutting decisions.
Delivery Oversight
Your team or our London partner builds; we review changes and sign off stage gates.
Ongoing Advisory
Cost drift, AI portfolio and architecture reviews each quarter.
Independent advice that carries into the build.
AurVald holds the design. Where you need implementation capacity, our London-based delivery partner builds against it, and we oversee the work. You keep one accountable design authority across advice and delivery.
Why this model: advisors who hand over a design and leave create a gap at the point of build. Implementation firms that also advise are paid by the hours their recommendations create. Separating design authority from build hours — while keeping both under one plan — avoids both problems.
A rhythm that keeps engagements moving.
Design authority sync
Open decisions, delivery questions, new risks and next week's agenda.
Steering
Roadmap progress, unit economics and decisions for the sponsor.
Convergence review
All three lenses together: cost drift, use-case refresh and next quarter's budget envelope.
The full methodology
Principles, lifecycle, roles and responsibilities, governance and deliverables in one document.
See the approach in practice.
The quickest way to judge how we work is a two-week Rapid Review on the area most pressing for you.