How we work with you
Most consulting engagements promise three things at once — vision, delivery, longevity — and stretch one team across all three. We make each phase explicit, with the right people and the right commercial structure for what that phase actually needs. This page covers how a PretaGov engagement runs from first conversation through to long-term partnership.
Strategy & Design
A focused engagement to figure out what to build, who it's for, what success looks like, and how it gets shipped. Typical duration 2 to 6 weeks. Outputs: a discovery report with named recommendations, a technical specification ready for build, wireframes or interactive prototypes where the design needs validation, and a realistic plan with milestones and risks.
What we do
- Stakeholder interviews and user research with the people who'll actually use the system.
- Business analysis: existing systems, integrations, regulatory constraints, team capability.
- Technical architecture options with trade-offs explicit, not buried.
- Prototyping where the design needs validation before commitment.
- Accessibility and security baseline review against the standards relevant to your sector.
Commercial model
Usually a small fixed-price piece for predictable scope (a 2-week persona workshop, a 4-week discovery sprint). Time-and-materials when the scope is genuinely emergent and discovery itself needs to be exploratory.
Build
The main delivery phase. Building, integrating, and shipping the software. Iteration length is typically one to two weeks, with regular demos to your product owner and continuous integration on every commit.
What we do
- Agile delivery in 1-2 week sprints, with priorities the client product owner can re-order.
- Continuous integration: automated unit tests, integration tests, accessibility checks (axe-core, Lighthouse), and security scans (Dependabot, OWASP ZAP) on every commit.
- Regular demos and stakeholder review at sprint boundaries.
- Manual QA and assistive-technology testing (VoiceOver, NVDA, JAWS) before release.
- Documentation, editor training, and launch support during go-live.
Commercial model
Fixed-price for projects with defined scope: a CMS migration, a register build, an integration into a named external system. Time-and-materials for projects where scope or priorities are expected to evolve — research-led development, prototyping ideas, evolving business requirements. Most build phases combine the two: a fixed-price core feature set plus a T&M envelope for variations.
Operate
Hosting, monitoring, security, and ongoing improvement of the software after launch. For some clients this is the longest phase of the engagement by a wide margin — we've been operating Plone platforms continuously for clients since 2007.
What we do
- Cyber Essentials–certified hosting on AWS or partner infrastructure, with UK or AU data sovereignty as required.
- Uptime and latency monitoring with an on-call rotation. Incidents acknowledged within agreed SLA windows.
- Security patching against published CVEs, with regression runs before production rollout.
- Quarterly capacity reviews — we size up before you notice, not after.
- Quarterly hosting reports covering uptime, incidents, deferred work, security posture, capacity outlook.
- Annual penetration testing for higher-tier clients.
- Ongoing accessibility regression catching and CMS version upgrades.
Commercial model
Mostly fixed-price for support and hosting tiers — a predictable annual cost for a known service level. Time-and-materials for improvement work, evolution of the platform, and unanticipated needs as they arise. A typical year combines both.
Engagement models
Two commercial models, mixed across the phases above as the work calls for it.
Fixed-price
For clearly-scoped work where outcome and timeline can be agreed upfront. Cost certainty, defined deliverables, milestone-based billing. Works for: workshops, persona work, accessibility audits, defined-scope migrations, support packages, hosting tiers.
Time and materials
For work where scope or priorities will genuinely evolve. Pay for the time and resources spent. Works for: agile development on shifting requirements, exploratory analysis and prototyping, ongoing improvements, long-term partnership work where you don't want a re-procurement every six months.
Most engagements mix the two
Typical pattern: fixed-price discovery + fixed-price build core + T&M envelope for build variations + fixed-price hosting/support + T&M improvement work. We don't insist on one model where the work doesn't fit it.
Getting started
Most engagements start with a 30-minute call. We listen, we don't sell. If there's a fit, we propose either a fixed-price discovery piece or a short paid scoping engagement — whichever matches the shape of what you're trying to do. From there it's a small first piece of work, and we build trust through delivery rather than asking you to bet on a long contract up front.