How we work: the HAM Method

Work slips in the gaps between the plan, the people doing it and the people paying for it. The HAM Method closes those gaps by running the whole job on one system.

One spine. Many views. Gated. Outcome-led.

Every task, decision, risk and owner lives on one master list. From it we render the view each person needs: a timeline, a board, the gates, the sprints, the risks and owners, a dashboard.

We maintain it once. Nobody works from an old version.

1. The Spine

The critical path. Where we're going, in what order, and what has to happen before what. We work out what you actually want first, then plan backwards from it.

2. The Gates

Go or no go, with pass criteria agreed up front. Nothing moves to the next stage on hope. Each gate is a decision, and you make it with us.

3. The Sprint Engine

Short, time-boxed sprints, one goal each, driven gate to gate. We ship the smallest thing that's useful, then improve it. Every sprint ends with a short look back: what to keep, what to fix.

4. The Board

The live board where this sprint's work flows. What's waiting, what's moving, what's done. A cap on how much is in progress at once, so things actually finish.

5. The Ledger

Risk, ownership and an outcome on every item. Who does it, who signs it off, what could go wrong, and what done looks like. If the scope grows, it gets logged here and agreed as a change. It doesn't get quietly absorbed.

The parts are borrowed on purpose: critical-path planning, stage-gate, lean and agile sprints, kanban, RAID and RACI logs. The discipline is theirs. Running them as one system is ours.

Every task has to open one of three doors, or it's parked.

• Structure. It builds something the business stands on: the plan, the model, the governance, the system.
• Evidence. It proves or disproves something: a number checked, a customer heard, a claim tested.
• Momentum. It moves something forward this week: a launch, a meeting, a signature.

If it opens none of them, it waits. That's how a small team stays on what matters.

Every figure we hand you carries one of three grades.

This site works the same way. Every number is graded, and the grade and source for each one sit on the numbers page. Admitting what's only Reported is what makes Confirmed worth something.

When your board or your investors read our work, they can see which numbers carry weight. Diligence goes faster.

We put a draft in front of you early, and often. Reacting to something on the page is faster than describing it from nothing.

Nothing goes out in your name until you've approved it.

AI does the heavy lift: research, first drafts, checking, admin. A person makes the judgement calls, and a person signs off.

A human in the loop is a proper backstop, not a box ticked. You get senior thinking, faster, with someone accountable for it.

AI in the work since 2019. AI and machine learning in HAM's offer from 2019; our own AI ventures from 2020; paid AI and automation delivery from 2025.

We turn work down. It is easier to say this here than in a first meeting.

• Anyone who wants work to start before the scope is signed. By both sides. No exceptions, including for people we know well.
• Time and materials. We price the project against named deliverables. If what you want is a few days a week of a person, we are the wrong firm and we will say so on the call.
• Work instructed through a messaging app like Slack or WhatsApp. Relationships live there. Scope, decisions and approvals do not.
• A brief that is one performance number. A remit, the authority to deliver it, and gates. Not a single figure with everything else left vague.
• Where we would be one of five suppliers with nobody holding the middle. That arrangement fails and then gets shared out between the suppliers.
• A claim we cannot evidence. If the only way to win is to say something that will not survive a diligence read, we will not say it.
• Anyone who treats people badly. Our team, your team, a supplier, anyone.

None of this is precious. Every one of them is a line we have learned.