Phil Wagner

Engagements

Six ways to buy the same thing: people who can actually do the work, and evidence that they can. Every engagement is a fixed fee against a named list of deliverables. The table decides which one. The sections under it say exactly what arrives.

Get in touch

How the four project engagements relate

The first four are rungs, not tiers. The audit tells you what is missing. The architecture specifies what to build. The program build produces it. A custom engagement is what happens when one architecture cannot cover the whole company. You can enter at any rung, and each one produces a document you own outright, so stopping after any of them leaves you with something usable rather than a half-finished project.

Engagements run from $15,000 to $120,000 and up. Most companies start at the audit or the architecture and stop there, which is a fine place to stop.

What these produce is on the site rather than described. The work samples are real deliverables from this practice, in the format a client receives them. See the work samples.

Compare them

Fees are fixed and quoted in full before work starts. Calendar time assumes your reviewers meet the two review windows.

Every engagement, what it costs, and when it is the wrong choice
EngagementFeeCalendar timeChoose it whenNot this ifYou end up holding
Capability Audit $15,000 3 to 4 weeks You suspect there is a gap and cannot yet name it You already know the gap and need the plan A written finding on what your people can and cannot do, by role, and what to do first
Capability Architecture $32,000 to $38,000 6 to 8 weeks You know the gap and need a plan good enough to build from Nobody on your side can build or buy from a spec A build-ready specification your team or any vendor can execute
Program Build $45,000 to $85,000 10 to 16 weeks The architecture exists and you want it built once, properly You have no architecture and want to start with courseware The finished program, source files included, running in your systems
Custom Engagement From $120,000 Six months and up One architecture cannot cover the whole company A single role family or business unit would do A scoped program of work, defined with you before any fee is agreed
Executive Cohort $28,000 6 sessions over 8 weeks Your leadership has to decide, not to be briefed You want an all hands talk or a keynote A leadership team that can make specific decisions about AI work, and the written positions they agreed
Fractional Head of Learning $9,000 per month 3 days a month, 6 month minimum You need the judgment continuously, not the project You need someone to produce material every week A senior owner for the function, without a headcount requisition

Project engagements

Rung 01

Capability Audit

$15,000 3 to 4 weeks

What can our people actually do, and how would we know?

A structured read of one business unit or one role family. Interviews, a review of what you already run, and a look at the work itself rather than at the completion reports. It ends in a finding you can take to a budget conversation.

What arrives

  • Role map for the unit in scope, with the capability each role is assumed to have
  • Gap finding, separated into what training can fix and what it cannot
  • Review of existing learning assets, marked keep, rewrite, or retire
  • A ranked list of what to do first, with a cost band on each item
  • One 90 minute readout to your leadership, recorded if you want it

What I need from you

  • A named approver who can sign off on the finding
  • Six to ten interviews, 45 minutes each, scheduled inside the engagement window
  • Read access to your existing curriculum and completion data

How success is judged

You can state, in one sentence per role, what the gap is and what it costs you. If the audit cannot produce that sentence, it has failed and I will say so in the readout.

Rung 02

Capability Architecture

$32,000 to $38,000 6 to 8 weeks

What exactly are we building, for whom, and how will we know it worked?

The rung that decides whether the money after it is well spent. A competency model, learning paths by role, assessment design, and a measurement plan that reaches past completion rates. It is written to be executed by somebody else, which is what makes it worth owning.

What arrives

  • Competency model for the roles in scope, written as observable behavior rather than topics
  • Learning path per role, with prerequisites and a stated time cost
  • Assessment design, including what a passing performance looks like
  • Measurement plan through the results level, and what to do when the data does not exist
  • Content inventory with a build-ready specification per item
  • Rollout and change plan, including who has to say what to whom
  • Two review cycles against the draft, and a final readout

What I need from you

  • A named approver with authority over the program budget
  • Access to role owners for four to six working sessions
  • A decision on scope boundaries in week one, in writing

How success is judged

A competent team who has never met me can build from the document without calling to ask what was meant. That is the bar, and it is testable: hand it to an internal builder and watch what they ask.

Rung 03

Program Build

$45,000 to $85,000 10 to 16 weeks

Who is actually going to build this, and to what standard?

Production against an existing architecture, mine or yours. Modules, assessments, facilitator material, and the export your platform needs. Accessibility is specified before build rather than retrofitted after, because retrofitting it costs more than doing it first.

What arrives

  • Built modules against the specification, with source files handed over
  • Scenario based assessments with distractor rationale documented
  • Facilitator guide and participant material for any live component
  • Platform package in the format your system takes, tested in that system
  • WCAG 2.1 AA conformance, including a manual keyboard pass
  • Two review cycles, and a pilot with a real cohort before full release

What I need from you

  • A named approver who can accept deliverables without a committee
  • Subject matter experts for review, not for authoring
  • A pilot cohort of 8 to 15 people, and their managers briefed

How success is judged

The program runs without me. Your team can update it, because they hold the source and the specification it was built from.

Rung 04

Custom Engagement

From $120,000 Six months and up

How do we do this across every function without twelve incompatible programs?

Multiple role families, more than one region, or a capability program that has to survive a reorganization. Scoped in a paid discovery of two to three weeks, which is credited in full against the engagement if you proceed.

What arrives

  • Paid discovery, two to three weeks, producing the scope and the fee
  • Engagement plan in phases, each phase with its own acceptance criteria
  • Everything the architecture and build rungs produce, per track in scope
  • Governance model, so the program has an owner after I leave
  • Quarterly measurement review for the length of the engagement

What I need from you

  • An executive sponsor, not only a program owner
  • A named approver per track
  • A decision forum that meets on a schedule rather than on demand

How success is judged

Each track ships on its own timeline and they still add up to one capability model. The governance model is the part that makes that true after the engagement ends.

Standing engagements

Neither of these is a rung on the ladder. They are different purchases, for a different person on your side.

Standing engagement

Executive Cohort

$28,000 6 sessions over 8 weeks

Our executives keep asking what our position is. What is our position?

Up to twelve executives, six working sessions, each one ending in a decision rather than a discussion. This is not a course about AI. It is the room where your leadership writes down what your company will and will not do, and what they will tell their own teams.

What arrives

  • Six 90 minute sessions, facilitated, with pre-reading that takes under 20 minutes
  • A written position per session, drafted in the room and edited after
  • An AI use policy draft your legal and security teams can review
  • A one page brief per executive for their own organization
  • A closing session with the positions consolidated into one document

What I need from you

  • Twelve executives who attend all six, which is the hard part
  • One sponsor who opens session one and closes session six
  • Willingness to publish the positions internally afterward

How success is judged

Your executives stop asking what the company thinks and start telling their teams. If the positions never get published, the cohort was a discussion group.

Standing engagement

Fractional Head of Learning

$9,000 per month 3 days a month, 6 month minimum

We have nobody senior enough to own this, and hiring takes nine months.

Three days a month of the role rather than of the output. Standards, hiring, vendor selection, program review, and the arguments that need somebody senior in the room. It is deliberately not a production arrangement, because three days a month cannot produce a program and pretending otherwise would waste your money.

What arrives

  • Three scheduled days a month, booked a month ahead
  • Standards and review gates for whatever your team builds
  • Vendor and tool evaluation, with the recommendation written down
  • Interview participation and scorecards for learning hires
  • A monthly written review of what shipped and what it changed

What I need from you

  • A team or a vendor who does the producing
  • A standing slot on a decision forum, so the days are not spent waiting
  • Thirty days notice to end it, either direction

How success is judged

Your team ships better work than it did, and you can name what changed. At six months you should be able to decide whether to hire the role permanently, which is usually the point.

How I work

Fixed fee, quoted in full
You know the total before work starts. A fee that moves after a proposal is signed is a pricing failure, and it is mine to absorb, not yours.
A finite list of deliverables
Every engagement names what arrives, in writing. If it is not on the list, it is not in the engagement, and adding it is a conversation rather than an assumption.
Two review cycles
One against the draft, one against the revision. Two is enough to get it right and few enough that the work finishes. A third cycle is a change in scope.
One named approver
One person on your side who can accept a deliverable. Not a committee. Review by consensus is the most expensive delay in this work and it is avoidable.
No hourly billing
You are buying a result, not my calendar. Billing by the hour puts us on opposite sides of every efficiency, and I would rather be on yours.
You own everything
Source files, specifications, assessment banks, all of it, outright. There is no license to renew and nothing that stops working if you do not hire me again.

The one hourly rate

Work outside an agreed deliverable list is $325 an hour. That rate exists so there is an honest answer when you ask for something the engagement does not cover, rather than a renegotiation or a quiet no. It is not how engagements are priced and it is not a way to buy one in pieces.

Start with a conversation

Thirty minutes, no deck. Tell me what prompted you to look, and I will tell you which engagement fits or that none of them do.

Get in touch