HOW WE START
One department. Six to eight weeks. Fixed fee.
Your AI operating partner measures the work, then hands you a workflow map and a fixed-price proposal for the first build.
- weeks from kickoff
- 6 to 8
- department, sized by our research
- 1
- deliverables
- 12
- First hours map shared
- Weeks 2 to 3
The offer on one page
This is the specification for how we start. Anything else on this site that describes our first engagement follows it.
- Scope
- One department and the systems it works in.
- Team size
- No set size. The research maps the department as it is, and the proposal scopes it; a large department may start with one defined team.
- Timeframe
- Six to eight weeks from kickoff, depending on the department and its systems.
- Price
- One fixed fee, agreed and signed before kickoff. The number is in the proposal, not on the website.
- What you get
- Twelve deliverables, ending in a workflow map and a fixed-price proposal for the first build.
- Not included
- The build itself, which that proposal prices separately. No obligation to continue afterwards.
- What we need from you
- A named owner, system access, compliance sign-off on the capture, written notice to team members, and short sessions to confirm the map.
- Protected health information
- Where a department handles protected health information, we execute a business associate agreement before Trace is installed or any data is accessed.
- Without Trace
- If compliance does not approve capture, we use interviews, observed working sessions and system reports. Hours are then estimated from samples, so confidence is lower.
- Ownership
- Your client-specific workflows, data and documentation are yours. Trace is Reliable Group software, licensed under the engagement; third-party tools keep their own license terms.
WHY A DISCOVERY
Why a discovery, and why this one
Everyone is told to do something with AI; the usual answer is a scoping engagement that ends in an estimate. We replaced it with something time-bound and price-bound: a dedicated team on one department, measuring real workflows with Trace where compliance approves it. You leave with a workflow map and a fixed-price proposal for the first build.
- Inventory of people, software, data
- Every workflow scored by hours
- Rules first, then AI, then people
- Personal skills Trace generated keep working
The twelve deliverables, in three workstreams
Architecture and sequencing
- Sequenced onboarding roadmap: which workflows go first, and why
- Architecture decision record: each technical choice and the reason for it
- Fixed-price proposal for the first build, ready to sign if you proceed
- Roadmap gated by wave: each later build has its own go or no-go decision
Connectivity
- Validated connectivity plan: how we connect to every system in scope
- Per-system spike write-ups: short tests proving each connection works
- Historical data-quality read: whether past data is clean enough to use
- Peripheral tools to connect, consolidate or retire
Workflow analysis and ranking
- Data analysis report ranking every candidate, with one flagship: the workflow we recommend building first
- Trace workflow map and observation corpus: the recorded steps behind the map
- Personal skills from capture: AI skills built from the repeated work in each role
- Weekly and final readouts
Week by week
Step 1: Week 1
Kickoff, once your named owner, system access, compliance sign-off on the capture and team-member notice are in place; scope the applications Trace records.
Step 2: Weeks 2 to 3
Capture; first hours map shared.
Step 3: Week 4
Candidate workflows ranked; flagship agreed with you.
Step 4: Weeks 5 to 8
Architecture, first-build proposal and final readout (week 6 to week 8 depending on the department); credentials returned.
THE HOURS MAP
What the hours map shows
By day ten of capture you see the department's repeated sequences grouped into workflows and counted in hours per month, confirmed with the people who do the work. For a prior authorization team that is fax intake, portal lookup, the status call and the re-key into the core system.
Questions about the discovery
A six to eight week engagement on one department. We measure how the work happens, rank every repeatable workflow by cost and value, and deliver a workflow map and a fixed-price proposal for the first build. No obligation to continue afterwards.
No. Our research maps the department as it actually runs, whatever its size, and the proposal scopes the fee and timeline to it. A large department usually starts with one defined team.
Six to eight weeks from kickoff, depending on the department and its systems. Capture and the first hours map in weeks two to three; ranking and the flagship in week four; architecture, the first-build proposal and the final readout follow.
A fixed fee, agreed and signed before we start: one department, one price, no hourly billing. The number is in the proposal, not on the website. We guarantee the twelve deliverables against the signed acceptance basis. The first build is priced separately.
We run the discovery without it. Hours come from structured interviews, observed working sessions and system reports, confirmed with the people who do the work. The map is estimated from samples rather than measured, so confidence is lower and no personal skills are produced.
A named owner for the weekly readouts, read access to the systems in scope, compliance sign-off on the capture, written notice to team members (we provide the template) and short sessions to confirm the map. Credentials are returned at the end.
Your client-specific workflows, data and documentation are yours. Trace is Reliable Group software, licensed under the engagement; third-party tools keep their own license terms.
The Blueprint was our earlier three-to-five-week scoping engagement, described in articles published in early 2026. It is no longer offered. The fixed-fee discovery on this page replaced it and is the only way we start.
No. Trace measures the work, not the worker: which applications and steps each task moves through. It runs openly, with written notice and a named internal owner, records no audio, clipboard or passwords, and never scores, rates or ranks anyone. Your team validates every finding.
Trace records which applications and steps each task moves through, and the hand-offs between systems, during a defined capture window. We group repeated sequences into workflows, count hours per month and confirm them with the people who do the work.
It stays with you. Trace is deployed into your own cloud account; the capture database, analysis layer and briefings live there. Our named analysts work in it under access controls you set, with every read logged. Nothing is transferred to a Reliable Group environment.
Every number we publish carries a label.
See the measured resultsNext step
Stop guessing how your operation works.
Tell us which department eats the most hours. We will say candidly whether measuring it is worth it.