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Worked examples

The work, shown as work.

Three illustrative engagements. Each one shows the artefacts we produce, one trade-off that mattered and what we would do differently. The situations are composites drawn from how Emba works; no client information appears on this page.

Business analysis · Illustrative engagement

The program nobody could scope.

The situation

A delivery program in a large regulated organisation, eighteen months in, with three vendors, a growing backlog and no agreed statement of what "done" means. Two constraints shaped everything: the funding envelope was fixed for the financial year, and the legacy system it replaced could not be extended under its support contract.

What we did

Two weeks of structured interviews and document archaeology, then a requirements baseline the executive could actually sign: every requirement traceable to a business outcome, every outcome owned by a named executive, every conflict surfaced as a decision rather than buried in a backlog.

The trade-off that mattered

We recommended cutting a popular self-service feature from the first release. It was the most requested item in every workshop and the least connected to the program's funding case. Deferring it bought the delivery team one quarter of focus on the integrations that the funding actually depended on.

What we would do differently

Start the decision log on day one, not day ten. The first nine days of verbal agreements had to be reconstructed by interview, and two of them were remembered differently by the people who made them.

Technology advisory · Illustrative engagement

Build, buy, or stop asking the wrong question.

The situation

An organisation asked for a build-versus-buy recommendation on a case management capability. The real constraints: a security posture that ruled out most multi-tenant SaaS, and an internal team whose delivery record was strong on integration and thin on greenfield product work.

What we did

Reframed the options paper around the capability's parts rather than the whole. The workflow engine had credible commercial options that met the security posture. The intake and identity layers did not, and were small enough to build on the organisation's existing platform patterns.

The trade-off that mattered

The composite path costs more in integration than either pure option, and it was still the right call: it kept the organisation off a customisation treadmill on the product it bought, and kept its own team building the parts where its record said it would succeed.

What we would do differently

Bring procurement in during the options work, not after it. One shortlisted product fell out late on commercial terms that a week-one conversation would have surfaced.

Specialist talent · Illustrative engagement

A shortlist of three, not a pile of thirty.

The situation

A delivery team needed a senior business analyst for a security-conscious environment: half the market by clearance and location before skills entered the picture. The hiring manager had been burned before by agencies flooding the inbox to claim the placement.

What we did

A role briefing that separated must-haves from preferences, then a shortlist of three. Each candidate came with fit notes written against the briefing, availability that had been confirmed with the candidate rather than assumed, and the trade-off each choice represented, in writing.

The trade-off that mattered

The strongest technical candidate had the weakest stakeholder record for a role that was two-thirds stakeholder work. We said so in the fit notes and ranked accordingly. The hiring manager interviewed all three and disagreed with our ranking, which the fit notes made a productive conversation instead of a surprise.

What we would do differently

Confirm the panel's interview capacity before the shortlist lands. Three strong candidates and a four-week interview backlog is how you lose the middle one.

The next step

Method here. Specifics in conversation.

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