Skip to main content
Practice  —  Memorandum No. I  —  Execution Diagnostic

No. I

A short, written read on the operator's quarter.

Four to six weeks of live observation, founder-shaped questions, and ground-truth interviews. The output is a written diagnostic the founder can act on or pass to the next engagement.

No. 1  —  Premise

Why this exists.

1

The founder's problem

What gets surfaced. Ground-truth interviews with founders, ICs and operators read what dashboards do not: where decisions sit, where they stall, where the team is improvising in place of process. The metric story is half the read; the cadence story is the other half.

2

The practice's response

How the practice works. Four to six weeks live or async, founder-shaped questions written week one, operator and artefact reviews week two and three, synthesis week four, written diagnostic delivered week five or six. The deliverable is a memo, not a deck.

No. 2  —  Cadence

How it works.

  • Week 1: live observation Onsite or async, sitting in standups, reviewing dashboards, watching the cadence in motion.
  • Week 2: founder interviews Two long conversations with the founder: what they said, what they meant, what they're not saying.
  • Week 3: operators + artefacts Five-to-eight conversations across the team. PRDs, OKRs, retros and board decks read in full.
  • Week 4: synthesis Drafting in private. This is the week the diagnostic actually gets written.
  • Week 5–6: diagnostic + readout Memo delivered, decision matrix attached, sixty-minute readout with the founder.

No. 3  —  Artefacts

What it produces.

  • Written diagnostic memo Twelve to twenty pages on what's working, what's drifting, and what needs to change before next quarter.
  • Decision matrix What to defend, what to change, what to retire, with the cost and timing of each call.
  • One-page summary for the board The diagnostic, distilled. For the room that won't read twenty pages.
  • Optional roadmap-correction draft If the diagnostic surfaces a roadmap break, a draft correction lands with it.

No. 4  —  Prerequisite

Standing required.

For Series A–C consumer-tech founders building in the Gulf, ready to act on findings rather than commission another deck. The diagnostic lands a written read; the founder runs it.

Not for

  • Pre-product founders The diagnostic reads what's running, not what's pending.
  • Annual subscription expectations This is a four-to-six-week engagement, scoped and ended.
  • Operator hiring briefs The diagnostic reads the practice; it does not staff one.

No. 5  —  Sister engagements

For deeper standing or quarter-by-quarter counsel.

Embedded Partnership  —  A working seat inside the operator's team. One- or two-quarter cadence, daily standups, written artefacts, decision logs.  → Advisory Retainer  —  A standing seat across the operator's quarter. Monthly memos, twice-monthly calls, quarter-close reviews.  →

No. 6  —  Regard

“One of the best Program Managers I know.”

Mike Manoske, PCC  ·  Executive Coach

Open an intro call  → Or send the nine questions  →