A consultancy is paid to produce a recommendation. A review is paid to produce a result, including the result you did not want.
The difference is the protocol. Five outcomes are fixed before testing begins, and one of them is Stop. A review that cannot end in Stop is not an evaluation, it is a proposal with evidence attached. The vocabulary and the protocol are frozen in advance, so a result cannot be reinterpreted once it arrives.
Evidence supports the proposed use under the evaluated conditions.
Evidence supports use only with named controls, limits, or monitoring.
The arrangement has correctable weaknesses and requires another evaluation.
Available evidence is insufficient for the decision being asked.
Evidence does not support the proposed use or the value case.
Agreed with you before testing, then frozen.
Often shaped as the work proceeds, alongside the emerging recommendation.
Findings against the criteria, the conditions actually tested, and the questions the evidence cannot answer.
A recommendation, and usually the programme to implement it.
Nothing. The lab does not sell the implementation of its own conclusions.
The implementation is frequently the larger engagement.
Yes, and that outcome is named in the protocol before the work starts.
Rarely, and almost never in a way that ends the relationship.
There are questions a consultancy answers better, and we would rather name them than pretend otherwise. If you need the change delivered rather than evaluated, if you need a large team on site for months, or if you need someone accountable for the operating result rather than for the evidence, buy consulting. A review tells you whether the thing is ready. It does not build the thing.
Tell us about the work and the decision you need to make. A paragraph is enough to tell whether this is a fit.
Mail to hello@euler.center is read by Sravan Ankaraju, who founded the lab. Expect a reply within 48 hours, and a straight answer about fit rather than a discovery call.
