How we run a six-week engagement.
title: "How we run a six-week engagement." date: "2026-03-30" excerpt: "Our standing process for short, high-signal collaborations — what we do, what we won't do, and how to know we're a fit." tags: ["process"] author: "Osys" cover: "linear-gradient(135deg, #E879F9 0%, #59D9FF 100%)"
A six-week engagement is the shortest collaboration that buys us enough time to ship something we're proud of. Anything shorter and we're sketching. Anything longer and we should be talking about a partnership, not a project.
Here is how a six-week engagement actually unfolds.
Week 0: scope, before the contract
We spend a free week with the team before any paper changes hands. We don't do "intro calls" — we do working sessions. We come with a deck of "here's how we'd approach this in week 1, 3, and 6," and we let the founder cut it apart.
If we can't agree on the shape of week 6 in week 0, we don't start.
Week 1: discovery + decisions
Four interviews, two audits, one decision tree. We exit the week with a written brief that names:
- What we're building. Concrete enough to put in a sprint plan.
- What we're not building. Equally concrete. This list is usually longer than the build list and saves the project from itself.
- What success looks like. One metric. Not three.
Weeks 2 — 4: design in code
Wireframes happen in Figma. Everything past wireframes happens in the repo. We build the product surfaces in the real stack, with real data, in real motion, from week 2.
We do not produce static comps for hi-fi work. They lie about what's shippable, they lie about what feels real, and they lock in decisions that should still be moving.
Week 5: hardening + handoff prep
Engineering, QA, performance pass, accessibility pass, observability hookups. We write the handoff doc — the one that lists every file the team will be modifying in their first month — and we record a 90-minute walkthrough video.
Week 6: launch + the next 30 days
We launch with you. We're on Slack the day of launch. We stick around for 30 post-launch days to fix the things you find that we couldn't.
What we don't do
- Pixel-pushing without strategy. If the brief is "make it pop," we're not the right studio.
- Three concurrent design directions. We pick one and commit. Three directions is what studios pitch when they're not sure.
- Open-ended retainers without renewal triggers. A partnership is a series of opt-ins, not a default state.
How to know we're a fit
You will know in week 0. If we leave that week energised and you leave it clearer than when we started, we're a fit. If either side is hedging, we aren't.