Two weeks.
One named concern.
The Undercurrent Review is the entry point for most engagements. A focused, time-boxed look at one specific concern your team has already started to feel — ending in a Driver Map you can act from and a clear-eyed view of what makes sense next.
Surface, then shape.
The Review is structured to move quickly from listening to clarity. Two weeks is enough — by design — to keep the work focused and avoid drifting into open-ended discovery.
Go to the work itself.
We start where the signal lives — not in dashboards or executive summaries, but in the operating reality of the concern you've named.
- Kickoff: scope the one concern together, in plain language
- Structured interviews with 4–6 people closest to the work
- Review of recent projects, P&Ls, estimates, change orders
- Observation of decision cadences and handoffs around the concern
Name the drivers. Rank what matters.
We synthesize what we found into a focused picture: the drivers actually shaping the concern, ranked by leverage, with a clear case for where to act first.
- Driver synthesis from interviews and project review
- Leverage ranking — high, medium, lower
- First moves brief for each high-leverage driver
- Designed Driver Map + walkthrough session with your team
The Driver Map.
A designed, one-page artifact your team can post on a wall, share in a meeting, and act from. It names the drivers behind the concern, ranks them by leverage, and points to the first concrete moves on the ones that matter most.
It's the opposite of a deck that gets filed. It's a working reference your team comes back to.
- Driver Map (1 page)
The designed artifact — drivers named, ranked, and visualized.
- Written summary (3–5 pages)
The narrative behind the map: what we heard, what we found, why it ranks the way it does.
- First moves brief
Concrete next actions for each high-leverage driver — sized for your team to actually take on.
- Walkthrough session
A live working session with your team to read the map together, recorded for the people who can't be there.
You decide together what — if anything — comes next.
The Review ends with a real decision, not a sales pitch. Based on what the Driver Map shows, there are three honest paths forward.
Pattern Mapping
Zoom out from the one concern to the operating patterns shaping your work overall. The right fork when the Review surfaces drivers that clearly repeat across projects.
Activation
Turn one or more of the mapped drivers into a working operating asset — a workflow, a decision framework, a scoring tool the team uses day-to-day.
Stop here
Sometimes the Driver Map is enough. Your team takes it from there. We're not here to grow the engagement to grow the engagement.
Bring us one concern.
The Undercurrent Review starts with a focused conversation about the one thing your team can't quite name. From there, we scope a two-week engagement around it.