The Scope Is Only the Starting Point

By Alice Dewar-Mills

This is the first article in our August series exploring what experienced fractional directors have learnt about the first few weeks and months of a new client engagement.

One of the things I enjoy most about the Fractional on Demand community is hearing how different directors approach the same challenge.

Our members work across a huge range of disciplines, sectors and businesses, yet it's remarkable how often the same lessons emerge. One conversation that comes up time and time again is what happens in those first few weeks after you've signed a new client.

The Problem Behind the Problem

The original scope is rarely the whole story. There's often a problem behind the problem.

Most engagements begin with a clear objective. Improve reporting. Strengthen operations. Develop a commercial strategy. Build a marketing plan. On paper, the scope looks straightforward.

Once you're inside the business, however, you begin to understand how the organisation really works. You see how decisions are made, where the blockers are, how priorities compete and how seemingly unrelated issues affect one another. Quite often, you realise that the challenge you've been asked to solve isn't actually the place where you'll create the greatest value.

That doesn't mean the original scope was wrong. It simply means that, from the outside, it's almost impossible to see the full picture.

Deliberately Slowing the Start

One of our members, Emma Wyatt, summed this up perfectly when she said:

"One thing I do with every new client now is deliberately slow the start."

It's slightly counterintuitive. Most of us feel a responsibility to demonstrate value as quickly as possible. Emma's experience has been that taking time to understand the founder, the leadership team and what success really looks like often changes the direction of the engagement.

As she put it:

"Solving the wrong problem well is still solving the wrong problem."

Focusing on Outcomes That Matter

Dror Levy described a similar experience from a commercial perspective. Once you start lifting the bonnet, you often uncover opportunities and challenges that nobody had identified at the outset. One of his biggest lessons has been recognising that discovering more problems doesn't automatically mean trying to solve all of them. Part of our role is helping clients stay focused on the outcomes that matter most.

I recognised exactly the same pattern in my own work. I've worked with clients who wanted better management reporting. A few weeks into the engagement, it became clear that the reporting itself wasn't the only issue. The data behind it wasn't reliable, which meant producing better reports wouldn't have led to better decisions. At the same time, we needed to address wider commercial questions around cashflow and organisational priorities. The reporting still mattered, but tackling it first wouldn't have solved the underlying problem.

Where Experience Makes the Difference

Reading everyone's contributions, I was struck by how similar our experiences were.

The first few weeks of a fractional engagement aren't about demonstrating how quickly you can deliver. They're about understanding where your experience will make the biggest difference.

That might mean asking more questions than you answer. It might mean challenging the original scope. It might even mean recommending that something else needs to happen before the work you were originally brought in to do.

That can feel uncomfortable when you're keen to demonstrate value. In reality, it's often the moment you begin creating it.

Next week we'll explore another theme that came up repeatedly in our conversations: why the relationships you build in those early weeks are every bit as important as the expertise you bring.