What you can buy, in the FAQ

The design pair and the build team, answered in full.

The two monthly delivery rungs: a pair designing the operating model and the agentic architecture, and a team of three building inside your estate under partner oversight.
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57 questions on the design pair and the build team, answered by Tenhaw, a UK AI consultancy and AI delivery partner based in London. Nothing here is a summary: each answer is the exact text from the page that owns it, and every group links back to that page for the context around it.

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Agentic Design Team

Answered on Agentic Design Team, and rendered here in the same words.

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What is an AI-native operating model?

An organisational design in which AI agents perform a meaningful share of the work, and the structure, roles, decision rights and governance are rebuilt around that fact rather than bolted onto the existing hierarchy. It specifies what humans own, what agents own, how agent decisions are audited, and who is accountable when an agent gets something wrong. AI-native organisation design is another accurate name for the same work.

Is this target operating model (TOM) design?

Yes. The deliverable is a target operating model in the same sense a Big Four engagement uses the phrase: structure, roles, decision rights, governance and the sequenced plan to move to them. Two things distinguish ours. It is designed for an organisation in which AI agents perform a meaningful share of the work, and the technical architecture is designed alongside it by the same pair, because a target model the platform cannot support is a document rather than a design. If you have bought TOM work before, the shape will be familiar; the decision rights will not be.

Why design the operating model and the infrastructure together?

Because a target operating model the platform cannot support is a document rather than a design, and an architecture built without knowing which decisions move to agents optimises for the wrong things. Separating the two is one of the most reliable ways to produce a programme that stalls at the point of scaling.

Do you provide an interim Head of AI?

Yes, with one caveat about scope. Designing how the organisation works around agents is one job, and running the delivery is another, though most organisations advertise the two together as Head of AI. This rung supplies the first, as an operating-model lead alongside an agentic architect, for two to four months. If what you need is the delivery half, that is programme and delivery management at £18,000 to £35,000 a month, or the Agentic Build Team if the thing also has to be built. Either way it is an engagement rather than an appointment, and writing the specification you recruit against is part of the work.

Why a team of two rather than one?

The two disciplines are different. Operating-model design is about decision rights, accountability and adoption; agentic architecture is about platform, data, integration and security. One person covering both does one of them badly. Two senior practitioners is the smallest team for the work.

How do you decide what humans own versus what agents own?

By the consequence and reversibility of the decision, not by task complexity. Agents take decisions that are high-volume, observable and cheaply reversible. Humans retain decisions that are consequential, contested, or hard to undo. The boundary is written down explicitly per role, and the escalation path across it is part of the governance framework.

Do you build the system as well, or only design it?

Design only, and deliberately so. This rung designs what gets built rather than building it, so there is no build engineer on it. The two seats are an operating-model lead and an agentic architect, and the architect gets the architecture signed off with your CTO rather than handing it to them. What you get is a target operating model with roles defined by the decisions they own, the platform, data, integration and security architecture, a governance framework that makes agent decisions auditable rather than theoretical, human-in-the-loop boundaries defined per decision class with escalation paths, and a sequenced build plan. Building it is a different rung with a different team.

How is the £35k–£55k monthly fee worked out?

From the published rate card, not from a negotiation. The team is two senior practitioners, an operating-model lead and an agentic architect, both at the published senior rate of £1,250 a day, and engagement prices derive from the rate card at twenty billable days a month, excluding VAT. Two senior seats on that basis sit inside the published band, and where a given month lands in it follows how much of each seat the work needs. There is no junior pyramid underneath the pair. It bills monthly, typically over two to four months, and either side can end it on 30 days' written notice.

What happens month to month on a design engagement?

The work runs in four phases. Weeks one to three establish current-state truth: how decisions actually get made, what your data and platform will support, and where the structure will fight the technology. Weeks four to eight design the operating model and the technical architecture together. Weeks nine to twelve cover governance and assurance: audit trails, escalation paths, model risk, and the human-in-the-loop points your risk function and your regulator will both ask about. The final weeks are sequencing and handover, with the build plan, the adoption plan and named internal ownership for every element. A shorter engagement runs the same sequence compressed, and every month is expected to show measurable value.

Do we have to build with Tenhaw after the design phase?

No. The engagement ends on a sequenced build plan your own teams, ours, or a third party could execute, the architecture is signed off with your CTO rather than handed to them, and you own all the work product. If you want Tenhaw to execute it, the next step on the ladder is the Agentic Build Team, three people at £70,000 to £85,000 a month; if you would rather build with the engineers you already have, the plan is written to be executable without us. The design work is priced to stand on its own, not to seed the next sale.

How do we stop each function building its own agent platform?

That is one of the clearest cases for this engagement. When several functions build independently you get incompatible platforms, governance that contradicts itself and integration work paid for twice, and unpicking that afterwards costs more than designing it once. The pair, an operating-model lead and an agentic architect, set the platform, data foundations, integration and security architecture centrally, define which decisions move to agents and who is accountable for them, and end on a sequenced build plan your functions execute against rather than around. It runs at £35,000 to £55,000 a month, typically over two to four months, and the architecture is signed off with your CTO rather than handed to them.

Our AI work is one team and one pilot. Are we too small for this?

Probably, and we would rather say so now. This rung is organisation-level design. It earns its price when several functions are affected, when structure and platform decisions have to be taken together, and when governance has to exist before anything scales. A single-team pilot does not need a target operating model, and neither does an organisation that has not yet established where agents create value. Better starting points are the AI Readiness Audit, four weeks at £44,000 fixed, which finds where AI does and does not pay, or an Agentic Proof of Concept at £20,000 to £55,000 over two to four weeks. Come back to design work when scaling is the actual problem.

How do you show measurable value in a month of design work?

By making each month end in something you would still want if we stopped there, rather than in progress towards a document at the end. The test is whether a decision your leadership was stuck on can now actually be taken: which decisions move to agents, what the platform has to support, what your risk function will accept. Design work goes wrong when all of its value arrives in the final week. Engagements here are retainer-shaped rather than milestone-shaped, and a month that delivers no measurable value is reported as a failed month rather than folded quietly into the next one.

What happens if our CTO disagrees with the architecture?

Then it is not finished, and that is deliberate. The architect signs the architecture off with your CTO rather than handing it to them, so disagreement is meant to surface during weeks four to eight, while the operating model and the architecture are still being designed together, rather than at a final readout. An architecture your CTO will not own is a document rather than a design, and it will not survive the first real build decision. If the disagreement turns out to be irreconcilable, the engagement is monthly and cancellable on 30 days' written notice either way.

What does a full design engagement cost in total?

Between roughly £70,000 and £220,000 excluding VAT, depending on how long it runs. The pair is priced at £35,000 to £55,000 a month and the work typically takes two to four months, so two months at the bottom of the band is about £70,000 and four months at the top about £220,000. Where a given month lands in the band follows how much of each seat the work needs, and there is no junior pyramid underneath the two. It bills monthly rather than as a lump sum, either side can end it on 30 days' written notice, and nothing obliges you to build with us afterwards.

If we give notice after month one, what do we actually have?

Everything designed to that point, and all of it is yours. The engagement is retainer-shaped rather than milestone-shaped, so each month is expected to deliver measurable value on its own, and a month that delivers none is reported as a failed month rather than folded into a later deliverable. After the first weeks you would hold the current-state work: how decisions actually get made across the organisation, what your data and platform will genuinely support, and where the structure will fight the technology. That is useful whoever does the rest of it. Notice is 30 days either way, in writing, and you own all the work product.

Could our own enterprise architects do this instead?

If they also hold a mandate over how the organisation works, yes, and you should keep the money. Capability is rarely the constraint. Most enterprise architecture functions own platform, data, integration and security and carry no authority over decision rights or accountability, so the architecture gets designed against an operating model nobody has agreed, which is why this rung is a pair rather than one architect. Where your architects are strong, the better shape is designing alongside them rather than around them, because they know the estate better than we will in three months and they are still there after we go.

We already have a target operating model. Does that shorten the work?

Often, and it is the first thing we test. Weeks one to three set current-state truth against how decisions actually get made, so a model that is honest about structure and accountability is a real head start. Two things usually have to be rebuilt, because the model was never written to answer them. Roles are defined by the tasks people do rather than by the decisions they own, and nothing in it draws a boundary between what a human decides and what an agent decides. Where the existing model is sound the design phase is narrower and the engagement lands nearer two months than four. Bring it to the first conversation, which is the cheapest way to find out how much survives.

How much executive time does a design engagement need?

Concentrated in weeks one to three, when Tenhaw's operating-model lead establishes how decisions actually get made across the functions in scope, and that is leadership's own time rather than something the pair can do on their behalf. Your CTO carries the heaviest share, because the architecture is signed off with them across weeks four to eight rather than presented at the end, and risk and audit arrive around weeks nine to twelve when the governance framework is written. The engagement runs two to four months at £35,000 to £55,000 a month, and the larger demand is not diary time. The design forces decisions leadership has been deferring. How many hours that costs follows how many people hold those decisions today.

What if two directors both think they own the same decision?

That is one of the things weeks one to three exist to surface. Tenhaw's operating-model lead maps how decisions actually get made today rather than how the organisation chart says they are made, so a contested one shows up in the current-state work instead of at a final readout. Accountability is then mapped across the model before a single agent is deployed, and the final weeks attach named internal ownership to every element, so the decision leaves with one person against it. Where it stays genuinely contested, the pair cannot grant authority your executive committee has not settled, and that is the part a two to four month engagement cannot compress.

We already have a transformation programme running. Where does this fit?

Beside it, feeding it. Tenhaw's design pair carries no build engineer and no delivery management, so instead of competing to run your programme, it produces the target operating model, the architecture your CTO signs off, the governance framework and a sequenced build plan your programme executes against. The place the two collide is the plan, with two roadmaps pulling at the same teams, which is why the engagement ends on one sequence with named internal ownership for every element. If the programme also needs someone running delivery, that is a separate rung at £18,000 to £35,000 a month. Whether the AI work sits inside your programme governance or alongside it turns on who holds the platform decisions.

Can you design this for one division rather than the whole group?

Yes, provided the division genuinely holds its own decisions and its own platform. Tenhaw prices it at £35,000 to £55,000 a month whether the scope is a division or a group, because this is organisation-level design rather than team-level, and a division that owns its data, its integration points and its budget meets that test. It goes wrong where a division has to design on top of group platform, identity and security decisions it does not control, because the model then encodes choices someone else can overturn. Weeks one to three apply that test directly, and whether it passes turns on how much of the platform your group holds centrally.

How do we get a rolling monthly engagement through procurement?

Most procurement teams want a ceiling and an end date, and both exist here. Tenhaw's design pair runs at £35,000 to £55,000 a month across two to four months, so a purchase order can be raised against the months you have approved rather than as an open commitment, and the exit date is agreed at kickoff rather than left to drift. The contract is monthly and cancellable on 30 days' written notice either way, and you own all code, documents and work product as it is produced. What your finance team treats as committed spend usually turns on whether they book the notice period alongside the approved months.

Can two people design an operating model for a group our size?

Scale sits in the sequencing rather than in how many people draw the model. The operating-model half of Tenhaw's pair has run at that scale, on a target operating model co-designed, piloted and proved for 500 teams at HSBC, in James Rooney's transformation role there, with global rollout due in 2026 and not yet rolled out. The pair designs and your own people carry the volume, which is why weeks one to three test how decisions actually get made across the functions in scope, and the final weeks attach named internal ownership to every element. What sets the workload is the breadth of scope rather than the size of the organisation.

Do you need access to our production data to design the architecture?

Rarely, because this rung designs rather than builds. Tenhaw's agentic architect owns platform, data foundations, integration and security, and that design work runs off documentation rather than live systems: architecture and integration documentation, data catalogues, identity and security policies, and read access to schemas rather than to production records. Where something genuinely has to be seen live, it is seen on your own infrastructure under your own policies, with UK data residency by default and EU available, and the 24-hour personal-data-breach notification sits in the DPA either way. Both practitioners are screened to BS7858 before any client access. How much of the estate opens at all follows how far the architecture reaches.

Can our engineers keep building while the design runs?

Usually yes, and often they should, because two to four months with nothing shipping is its own risk. Tenhaw's pair has no build engineer in it, so nothing on this rung stops your teams delivering. The care is needed on irreversible commitments: platform selection, identity and access patterns, the integration layer, anything expensive to unpick if the architecture lands somewhere else. Those are what the agentic architect settles with your CTO across weeks four to eight, so they are worth holding. Reversible work carries on as normal. Which of your in-flight items sits on which side of that line is one of the things weeks one to three sort out.

What if we have already committed to an AI platform?

It becomes a constraint the architecture is designed around, and weeks one to three test how hard a constraint it is. Tenhaw's agentic architect owns the platform, data foundations, integration and security half of the pair, and works from what your estate will genuinely support, so a platform you have already bought is taken as given unless it cannot carry the decisions the operating model moves to agents. Where it cannot, that gap becomes sequenced work in the build plan rather than an assumption nobody checks. Your CTO signs the architecture off, so any decision to replace something is theirs. Which way it lands depends on what the platform is being asked to do.

Who keeps the operating model current after you leave?

Your own people, by name. Tenhaw's final weeks are sequencing and handover, and each part of the operating model, the architecture and the governance framework leaves with a person in your organisation attached to it, so named internal ownership for every element is a deliverable rather than a closing slide. One output of the interim Head of AI seat is the specification for the permanent person you recruit into it. The engagement is monthly on 30 days' notice either way and you own all the work product, so nothing about maintaining it depends on us. How much upkeep it needs then follows how fast your agent estate grows behind it.

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Agentic Build Team

Answered on Agentic Build Team, and rendered here in the same words.

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Who is actually on an agentic build team?

Three forward-deployed practitioners: an Agentic Lead who owns the operating model and decision rights, a Forward-Deployed Engineer who builds and ships inside your estate, and an Adoption Lead who owns the part that usually fails, getting people to actually work the new way. James Rooney provides partner oversight on every engagement. Everyone on the team is someone he has already delivered alongside, screened to BS7858 standard before any client access, and every person on your engagement is senior.

What is an interim agentic lead?

An interim agentic lead is a senior practitioner who runs an organisation's agentic delivery from inside its management structure for a defined period rather than as a permanent employee. At Tenhaw the role sits at the front of the Agentic Build Team: real decision rights, a real reporting line, accountability for the value delivered each month, and a dated exit with the capability owned by your permanent team. James Rooney is embedded in that role on a live engagement inside a London specialty insurance business, which is where the method on this site is being run in anger.

Can we take the agentic lead on their own, without the rest of the team?

Not from this rung. A build team is three people because shipping needs three: someone holding delivery, someone building, and someone owning adoption. If what you want is one senior person holding delivery, governance and supplier management while other people build, that is programme and delivery management at £18,000 to £35,000 a month, and it can be run fractionally from around three days a week. We would rather point you at the cheaper rung than sell you two people you do not need.

How often does the team deliver something?

Measurable value is delivered every month, and the team commits to it in writing and reports against it. There is no distant go-live to wait for, so you can judge the work on evidence within the first thirty days. A month that delivers no measurable value is reported as a failed month, and that is the commitment we ask to be held to from month one.

What stops us becoming dependent on Tenhaw?

The exit is designed at kickoff rather than negotiated at the end. The team pair-programs with your engineers throughout, recruiting your permanent team is an explicit deliverable, and the final sixty days are a documented handover with a decreasing-involvement taper. On a recent engagement, a client engineer who paired on a two-week build finished it 70% confident they could run the process unaided.

How much does an agentic build team cost?

£70,000–£85,000 per month for a team of three under partner oversight, typically on a 6–12 month engagement. That is comparable to a mid-sized consultancy engagement team, but resolves to three senior practitioners accountable for the outcome rather than a pyramid of juniors.

How is the price of an agentic build team worked out?

From the published rate card, so the monthly figure is built out of day rates rather than negotiated. The interim agentic lead and the forward-deployed engineer sit at the senior practitioner rate of £1,250 a day, the adoption lead at the associate rate of £950, and engagement prices derive from the rate card at twenty billable days a month. £70,000 to £85,000 a month is those three seats held for the length of the engagement, with partner oversight from James Rooney inside the fee rather than an account-management layer added on top. All rates exclude VAT and are published in full, so every component of the monthly figure is visible.

Can we make the build team bigger if we need more capacity?

No, and that is deliberate. The team is three people, an interim agentic lead, a forward-deployed engineer and an adoption lead, under partner oversight from James Rooney, and it does not get bigger than that. Capacity grows on your side instead. Your own engineers pair-program with ours for the whole build rather than for a handover fortnight at the end, and the transfer is measured, so more of your people can do the work while the engagement is running rather than after it ends. If the programme needs hundreds of people mobilised across many countries, this is the wrong rung and we will say so.

How long does an agentic build team engagement last?

Typically six to twelve months, as a monthly retainer with thirty days' notice either way and an exit date agreed at kickoff rather than left open. The shape is consistent. Month one is spent embedding properly, with a real reporting line, real decision rights and real access, because a team without authority is an expensive advisory function. Months two to four ship something that matters into production with the governance around it. Months five to nine scale the pattern, upskill your engineers and recruit your permanent team while the work is live, and the final sixty days are a documented handover with a decreasing-involvement taper.

Do we keep the code if we end the engagement early?

Yes. On payment of the applicable fees you own all deliverables, documentation, designs and code created for you, including anything built during a month that failed, and Tenhaw asserts no ownership over anything in your environment. Everything is deployed on your infrastructure, in your repositories, under your controls, so ending early leaves nothing to migrate off our estate because nothing was ever on it. Either side can terminate on thirty days' written notice under the published terms of business, and the ownership position sits in the standard terms every engagement is contracted under rather than something to negotiate on the way out.

What does a forward deployed engineer actually do?

A forward-deployed engineer builds and ships inside your estate rather than writing recommendations about it. The work happens in your repositories, on your infrastructure, under your controls and your organisation's policies, and the engineer pair-programs with your own engineers for the whole build rather than for a handover fortnight at the end, with the transfer measured. On an Agentic Build Team it is one of three seats, alongside the interim agentic lead and the adoption lead, and it bills at the published senior practitioner rate of £1,250 a day. Because nothing was ever built on our estate, there is nothing to migrate off it when the engagement ends.

Why not just hire three permanent people instead?

Often you should, and a permanent internal team in post and operating is one of the board outputs this engagement is judged on. The build team covers the gap before that, when the permanent team does not exist yet and the agenda will not wait for the search to finish. Three senior practitioners at £70,000 to £85,000 a month is a monthly retainer either side can end on thirty days' notice, with measurable value you can hold the team to from month one and an exit date agreed at kickoff. Recruiting your permanent team then happens across months five to nine, while the work is live rather than after we leave.

Do we still pay for a month you report as failed?

Yes. Engagements are retainer-shaped rather than milestone-shaped, so the monthly fee stands, and what changes is what you are told and what you can do about it. A month that ends with no measurable value delivered is reported to your sponsor as a failed month, in those words, in the same pack as everything else, and it does not get renamed a discovery month. On payment you own all deliverables, documentation, designs and code created for you, including anything from a month that failed. Either side can end the engagement on thirty days' written notice, and two failed months without a credible cause is a reasonable moment to use it.

Who from our side needs to be involved in month one?

A sponsor who can give the team a real reporting line, real decision rights and real access, because month one is spent embedding properly and a team without authority is an expensive advisory function. Practically that also means whoever owns the repositories and environments the work will run in, since everything is deployed on your infrastructure under your policies, and the engineers who will pair with ours through the build. All three practitioners are screened to BS7858 standard before they touch your estate. Beyond that, month one is ours to run, and by months two to four the team is shipping something that matters into production.

Is partner oversight part of the monthly fee or extra?

Inside it. Partner oversight from James Rooney sits within the £70,000 to £85,000 rather than an account-management layer added on top, and there is no pyramid of juniors behind the three seats. In practice it means the monthly value commitment, the failed-month report and the exit taper all sit with the partner whose name is on the engagement rather than with a client-service tier relaying messages between you and the people doing the work. He is currently embedded as an interim agentic lead inside a London specialty insurance business, so the method the team runs is one he is running himself.

We already have a Head of AI. Does a build team still fit?

A board that has appointed a Head of AI and now needs a delivery team under them is one of the situations this rung is built for. The three seats sit inside your management structure rather than alongside it, so the interim agentic lead runs delivery with a real reporting line into your Head of AI and accountability for the value committed each month, rather than competing for the mandate they already hold. The engineer builds in your repositories and the adoption lead owns the change, with partner oversight from James Rooney rather than an account-management layer, and a dated exit that leaves the capability with your permanent team.

Are governance and audit trails built in or added later?

Built in. Governance, audit trails and human-in-the-loop gates are on the deliverable list rather than a later phase, and the first production release in months two to four ships with the governance around it rather than following on behind. That matters because retrofitting an audit trail onto a live agentic workflow is a rebuild, and because your risk function will want to see how a decision was reached before it lets the workflow scale. Everything runs on your infrastructure under your controls and your organisation's policies, so the evidence sits in your estate from the start.

Who agrees what counts as measurable value each month?

You and the team, in writing, and the monthly commitment is written into the Statement of Work rather than left to a conversation. It is a measurable amount of value priced in currency, so it is a number your sponsor recognises rather than a list of activity, and the team reports against that same number in the same pack every month. If it is not met, the report states what was committed, what actually shipped and the specific cause, and it reaches the sponsor inside the same reporting cycle rather than at the next steering committee. How outcomes get priced is part of the delivery method published free on this site.

What is a forward deployed engineer?

A forward deployed engineer is a software engineer who builds inside a customer's organisation, in that customer's repositories and cloud tenancy rather than advising from outside it. Tenhaw holds that seat on an Agentic Build Team. On a live London specialty insurance engagement a two-week proof of concept turned PDFs into business intelligence, pair-programmed with a client engineer who finished 70% confident of running it unaided. It differs from a consultant, who recommends and hands over, and from a contractor working a ticket queue, because the engineer carries a real reporting line and is accountable for a system that runs. The title came out of enterprise software, where vendors put engineers on customer sites to build against live systems.

Do our own engineers review and merge the code your engineer writes?

If that is how your repositories work, yes. The Tenhaw forward-deployed engineer builds inside your repositories, on your infrastructure, under your controls and your organisation's policies, so your branch protection, review rules and merge gates apply to that work just as they do to your own team's. Most of it is written in a pair with one of your engineers, at the published senior practitioner rate of £1,250 a day, so the reviewer has usually already seen it. On payment you own all deliverables, documentation and code. What is worth settling before month one is who holds the approver role when your own engineers are the ones pairing, because the same person cannot be both the build and the check.

Our releases go through a change advisory board. Does that slow the cadence?

It shapes what gets committed rather than stopping it. Everything a Tenhaw build team ships is deployed on your infrastructure, in your repositories, under your controls and your organisation's policies, so your change process governs the release rather than ours. What the team commits to each month is a measurable amount of value priced in currency, not a weekly production push, so a board that sits monthly becomes a named dependency in that commitment. If a release slips because the board did not sit, the report names that as the specific cause rather than calling the month complex. Where your board meets quarterly, the sequencing is worth agreeing before kickoff rather than discovering it in month three.

Do our engineers need AI experience to pair with yours?

No, and Tenhaw does not assume any. The forward-deployed engineer pair-programs with your engineers on the real system for the whole build rather than running a handover workshop at the end, and the delivery method they are learning is published free on this site, so your people can read it before anyone turns up. The toolchain runs inside your estate, typically Claude Code with OpenAI and Gemini models, chosen per case rather than as a house standard. What matters more than prior AI experience is that the engineers you nominate know your systems and are genuinely freed up, because the transfer is measured and it can only be measured on people who are actually in the pairs.

What if our engineers push back on pairing with an outside team?

That is the adoption lead's job, and it is why Tenhaw holds a third seat rather than selling two builders. That seat sits at the published associate rate of £950 a day and owns getting people to work the new way, measured rather than assumed. It is the role most often cut from a business case and most often the reason it does not land. Pushback is usually about time rather than principle, since the pairing happens on live work in your repositories rather than in a training room, and the method is published in full so your engineers can judge it before they meet anyone. Where it is about the mandate instead, that is a sponsor decision.

What does procurement actually sign for a build team?

A Statement of Work on Tenhaw's published terms of business, with the monthly value commitment written into it rather than left to a conversation. It carries thirty days' written notice either way, and ownership of all deliverables, documentation, designs and code passing to you on payment, including anything built in a month reported as failed. Liability is capped per engagement in that SOW, with confidentiality and data protection handled separately, and insurance figures are published in full, with cover increased for a specific engagement where your supplier standard requires it. There is no minimum term to negotiate down, because the engagement is monthly. How long your own third-party risk review takes usually sets the start date.

What if our permanent team is not hired when you are due to leave?

It surfaces long before the final sixty days, because recruiting your permanent team is an explicit Tenhaw deliverable rather than a hope, and it runs across months five to nine while the work is live. A permanent internal team in post and operating is one of the board outputs the engagement is judged on, so a search that is not landing appears in the monthly report with its specific cause rather than at the exit. If the date arrives anyway, the engagement is monthly on thirty days' notice either way, so extending is a decision taken in the open rather than a default. Which seat is still unfilled matters more than the delay itself.

How much of our engineers' time does the pairing take?

Enough that it has to be planned rather than absorbed. The Tenhaw forward-deployed engineer pairs with your engineers on live work in your repositories for the whole build, so it is delivery work rather than training stacked on top of it, but the people you nominate need to be genuinely freed up rather than nominally available. For scale, on a live London specialty insurance engagement a client engineer who paired through a two-week proof of concept finished 70% confident of running it unaided. The transfer is measured, and it can only be measured on whoever is actually in the pairs. How many engineers you put through depends on how much of the capability you want held internally at the exit.

Our data is a mess. Do we need to fix that before a build team starts?

Usually not first, and Tenhaw does not require a finished data programme before month one. The first production release lands in months two to four and is scoped against the estate you actually have, with the governance around it, rather than waiting on a platform rebuild. Where data quality is genuinely what blocks the value it does not stay vague, because the monthly report names it as the specific cause of a missed commitment, and two failed months without a credible cause is a reasonable moment to use the thirty days' notice. What that leaves open is which of your data problems actually blocks the first workflow, as against the ones you have been meaning to fix anyway.

Your team builds with AI tools. Why does that still cost £70,000 a month?

Because the tools are the cheap part and the accountability is not. Tenhaw publishes the delivery method those tools are used inside, free to adopt without hiring anyone, so £70,000 to £85,000 a month does not buy a technique. It buys three senior practitioners inside your management structure with a real reporting line and real decision rights, committing in writing each month to a measurable amount of value priced in currency, where a month that delivers none is reported to your sponsor as a failed month in those words. Partner oversight from James Rooney sits inside that fee. How much of that delivery, adoption and governance load your organisation already carries is the part only you can price.

Can we try the build team for one month before committing?

Effectively yes, because it is a monthly retainer on thirty days' notice either way, but one month judges the wrong thing. Month one on a Tenhaw build team goes on embedding properly, with a real reporting line, real decision rights and real access, and the first thing that matters ships into production in months two to four. If you want evidence before a six to twelve month engagement, the cheaper instruments are the AI Readiness Audit at £44,000 fixed over four weeks, which ends in working prototypes, or an Agentic Proof of Concept at £20,000 to £55,000 over two to four weeks. Which one fits depends on whether your uncertainty is about the problem or about us.

All five engagements, priced side by side

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