Service model

A calm, architecture-first way to run digital initiatives

Cortex Digital Labs plugs into your organisation as a small, senior team. We move from discovery to architecture, to build, to handover in clear phases – with scopes that stay tight and outcomes that tie back to measurable ROI.

How an engagement unfolds

Align on outcomes & reality

We start by understanding where value actually lives: why this matters now, how success will be measured, and what constraints we’re working within across systems, people, and operations.

Outputs: shared narrative, current-state view, value hypotheses, constraints we respect.

Design the model & roadmap

We shape the target service and operating model – architecture, data, process and experience – then break it into a sequence of moves that your organisation can actually absorb.

Outputs: service blueprint, options with trade-offs, a 90-day plan and a longer-term view.

Pilot & prove

We pick a real slice of the business and take it end-to-end – from design to live usage – so stakeholders can see the impact in their daily work, not just in slides.

Outputs: working pilot, baseline metrics, adoption feedback, next-wave backlog.

Scale, embed & evolve

Together we scale what works, embed new ways of working, and transfer ownership so your teams can run and extend the solution without needing us in the loop forever.

Outputs: rollout approach, embedded rituals, capability uplift, roadmap for continuous improvement.

Ways to work with Cortex

The service model stays the same. What changes is the level of ownership we take relative to your internal teams. Most clients start small, prove value, then decide how far to extend.

Diagnostic sprint

2–4 weeks

A focused pass through phases 1 and 2: align on outcomes, understand the current reality, and leave with a clear model and options. Ideal when you know there’s a problem, but haven’t agreed what to do about it.

Co-delivery pod

Quarterly cycles

A cross-functional Cortex pod works side-by-side with your people to design, pilot, and refine a high-value slice of the roadmap. You get working outcomes and an internal team that learns by doing.

Managed initiative

6–18 months

For strategic programs, we take end-to-end responsibility for the initiative while deliberately building your internal capability. You get a single accountable owner instead of a tangle of vendors.

Advisory & enablement

Ongoing

Lightweight, recurring support: architecture clinics, decision reviews, and coaching for your leaders and delivery teams so the model keeps working as the business and tech stack evolve.

Talk through the right model

Rhythm and impact over time

Every engagement, regardless of size, runs on a simple cadence: regular working sessions to move the work forward, structured checkpoints to connect activity to outcomes, and clear artifacts at the end of each phase.

In practice, that looks like: a weekly or fortnightly working session to unblock decisions and review progress, a monthly outcome review with sponsors, and a phase close-out where we leave behind tangible assets your team can rely on – models, systems, and runbooks that outlive the engagement.

Working sessions Outcome reviews Decision forums Rollout & runbooks

Value across the engagement lifecycle

Illustrative view of how value typically ramps as we move from alignment to design, to pilots, to broad adoption with your teams owning the outcome.

Illustrative

Align & understand

Design & plan

Pilot & prove

Scale & embed

Relative business value realised in each stage Higher bars represent more value shipped and sustained, not more overhead.

Flexible entry points, consistent model

Not every organisation starts at step one. Some bring us in to pressure-test a strategy, others need help landing a rollout that’s already in motion. Wherever we plug in, we work through the same pattern of align → design → prove → embed so the work stays legible and the impact is traceable.