Method/Operations
Discipline IV
Operations
Workflows as they actually run — found, mapped, and rebuilt.
The Position
The written process is not the real one.
Every enterprise runs on two sets of workflows: the ones written down and the ones people actually use. They diverge quietly — a step skipped because it never mattered, a handoff routed around someone who left two years ago — and the gap between them is where time, money, and quality leak. Owners feel the leak long before they can point to it.
We map the workflow as it actually runs. Not the org chart, not the manual — the work itself, followed from the first phone call to the invoice, watching where a job waits, who touches it twice, and which decisions travel upward that never needed to. The map is drawn from the floor, not the office, and it usually surprises the person who wrote the original process.
Then we rebuild: fewer handoffs, named owners, and a workflow shaped to the work the enterprise actually does now. Adoption is tracked, because a rebuilt process nobody follows is the old process with new paperwork. The engagement ends when the new workflow holds without us standing next to it.
Who This Is For
A Good Fit
- Owners who feel time, money, or quality leaking but cannot locate the source
- Enterprises that have grown past the systems they started with
- Principals preparing to step back who need the operation to run without them
- Teams doing rework that nobody ordered and nobody can explain
Not A Fit
- Pure software or technology implementation with no operational component
- Staff augmentation — we rebuild the system, we do not become part of it
- Turnarounds of insolvent operations — that is a different table
The Lifecycle
Diagnostic
The structured reading across all seven dimensions — where the enterprise actually stands.
Workflow Mapping
The work followed from first contact to invoice, drawn as it actually travels.
Rebuild
Fewer handoffs, named owners, and a workflow shaped to the work being done now.
Adoption Tracking
The new process watched until it holds — because unfollowed is unbuilt.
Engagement
Retainer
MonthlyThe mapping and rebuild carried on a standing weekly cadence.
Diagnostic Session
A single sessionThe structured reading alone — a document you can act on with or without us.
Principal Hours
By the hourThe principal's reading of one workflow, one bottleneck, one decision — by the hour.
Terms are set out in the letter of engagement.
Every engagement begins the same way.
Begin The DiagnosticAdjacent Disciplines
What This Engagement Covers
Maison de Thu is a design and owner's-side house. We hold design, owner's-representation, and diagnostic engagement contracts. We do not hold construction contracts, do not provide legal representation, and do not offer investment advice. When a project requires construction, we help our clients select and manage a properly licensed general contractor — we do not become one.