The EPC Group Engagement Charter: Our Promise to Every Client
By Errin O'Connor, Chief AI Architect & CEO, EPC Group | Updated April 2026
Enterprise consulting is only as good as the experience it delivers. After 29 years and thousands of engagements, EPC Group has codified exactly what our clients should expect — and what we hold ourselves accountable to — in every single project. This is our Engagement Charter: explicit commitments, measurable SLAs, and the accountability structure that ensures consistent delivery regardless of project size, technology, or industry.
Why We Published This Charter
Transparency builds trust. The enterprise consulting industry has a well-documented pattern: impressive sales presentations followed by variable delivery experiences. Senior architects pitch the deal, junior consultants deliver it. Communication is proactive during the sales cycle and reactive during execution. Knowledge transfer is a slide deck emailed on the last day.
EPC Group rejects that model. We published this Engagement Charter because our clients deserve to know exactly what they are buying before they sign. Every commitment on this page is contractual — included in our Statements of Work and measured throughout the engagement. If we fail to meet any commitment, we want our clients to hold us accountable.
This charter applies to every EPC Group engagement: Power BI implementations, Microsoft Fabric deployments, AI governance frameworks, Copilot rollouts, Azure migrations, and SharePoint modernizations. No exceptions.
Communication Cadence: You Will Never Wonder What Is Happening
The number one complaint in enterprise consulting is communication gaps. EPC Group eliminates this with a mandatory communication cadence that every engagement lead is held accountable to:
| Communication | Frequency | Audience | Content |
|---|---|---|---|
| Weekly Status Report | Every Friday by 5 PM ET | Project team + stakeholders | Accomplishments, next week plan, risks, blockers, budget burn |
| Stakeholder Call | Bi-weekly | Project sponsors + leads | Progress review, decision points, risk mitigation, scope validation |
| Executive Summary | Monthly | CIO/CTO + executive sponsors | Strategic progress, budget vs. plan, key decisions needed, ROI tracking |
| Quarterly Business Review | Quarterly (retainer clients) | C-suite | Roadmap review, technology landscape, recommendations, NPS results |
| Ad-hoc Updates | As needed, same-day | Relevant stakeholders | Critical issues, scope changes, risk escalations — never delayed |
Every communication is documented in the project collaboration workspace (Teams channel or SharePoint site). Nothing lives only in email inboxes. If a stakeholder joins mid-project, they can review the complete communication history in one location.
Response Time SLAs: Measured, Not Aspirational
EPC Group defines three priority levels with specific response and resolution plan commitments:
- Critical (P1): Production down, data breach risk, compliance violation. Response within 2 hours. Resolution plan within 4 hours. Continuous engagement until resolved. CEO notified automatically.
- High (P2): Major functionality impacted, deadline at risk, escalated stakeholder concern. Response within 4 hours. Resolution plan within 1 business day. Daily updates until resolved.
- Standard (P3): General questions, enhancement requests, planning items. Response within 1 business day. Resolution within agreed sprint/milestone cycle.
These SLAs are tracked and reported in every weekly status report. If we miss an SLA, it is flagged in the report with a root cause and corrective action — not hidden or excused. Our current SLA adherence rate across all active engagements exceeds 97%.
Escalation Paths: Three Tiers, No Dead Ends
Every EPC Group engagement has a documented escalation path that is communicated to all client stakeholders at project kickoff:
- Tier 1 — Engagement Lead: Your primary point of contact for all day-to-day matters. Authorized to make tactical decisions, adjust resource allocation, and resolve delivery issues within the approved scope and budget. Response time: per SLA above.
- Tier 2 — Practice Director: Escalation point for scope disagreements, timeline concerns, quality issues, or any situation where the engagement lead cannot resolve the concern within 24 hours. The practice director has authority to bring additional resources, adjust approach, or modify delivery methodology. Engagement within 24 hours of escalation.
- Tier 3 — CEO (Errin O'Connor): Available for any client concern that reaches executive escalation. This is not a courtesy title — Errin personally reviews every Tier 3 escalation and engages within 4 business hours. In 29 years, fewer than 2% of engagements have required Tier 3 escalation, but every client has the path documented and available.
Escalation is never punitive. We encourage clients to escalate early and often — a concern raised at Tier 2 on day 5 is far easier to resolve than the same concern raised at Tier 3 on day 50. Our escalation process is designed to catch and resolve issues before they become project-threatening.
Executive Sponsor Access
Every EPC Group engagement above $50K is assigned an executive sponsor from EPC Group leadership — separate from the engagement lead. The executive sponsor provides:
- Monthly strategic alignment check-ins with the client's executive sponsor
- Independent quality review of delivery at each major milestone
- Escalation path that bypasses the delivery team entirely if needed
- Technology advisory input based on cross-client pattern recognition
- Continuity assurance if the engagement lead changes during the project
The executive sponsor relationship exists to ensure that EPC Group's institutional knowledge and senior expertise are available to every client, not just the ones who happened to get the most experienced engagement lead.
Weekly Status Reports: Complete Transparency
EPC Group's weekly status report is a structured document (not a casual email) that includes:
- Accomplishments: What was completed this week, mapped to SOW deliverables
- Plan: What will be completed next week, with assigned owners and dates
- Risks: Identified risks with probability, impact, and mitigation plans
- Blockers: Items requiring client action or decisions, with deadlines
- Budget: Hours consumed vs. planned, projected completion vs. budget
- SLA Performance: Response and resolution adherence for the week
- Client Satisfaction: Any feedback received and actions taken
The status report is delivered every Friday by 5 PM Eastern, without exception. If the engagement lead is unavailable, a designated backup delivers the report. We have not missed a weekly status report delivery in the last 24 months.
Quarterly Business Reviews (QBR)
For retainer and multi-phase engagements, EPC Group conducts structured Quarterly Business Reviews that include:
- Technology roadmap review and alignment with client strategic priorities
- Engagement health scorecard: SLA performance, budget adherence, milestone delivery
- NPS and satisfaction trend analysis
- Recommendations for the upcoming quarter based on technology landscape changes
- Resource and team composition review
- Innovation opportunities identified from cross-client patterns
QBRs are presented to C-suite stakeholders and include both backward-looking performance data and forward-looking strategic recommendations. They transform the client-consultant relationship from transactional to strategic.
Knowledge Transfer: Measured Competency, Not Just Documentation
Knowledge transfer is where most consulting engagements fail. The consultant leaves, and the client team cannot maintain what was built. EPC Group prevents this with a structured knowledge transfer process:
- Architecture Decision Records (ADRs): Every significant decision is documented with context, options considered, decision rationale, and consequences. Not just what was built, but why it was built that way.
- Operational Runbooks: Step-by-step procedures for every operational task: deployments, monitoring, troubleshooting, disaster recovery. Written for the client's team skill level, not EPC Group's.
- Recorded Training Sessions: Live training sessions recorded and indexed. Not pre-built generic training — sessions built on the client's actual implementation with their data and their scenarios.
- Competency Assessment: Before EPC Group considers an engagement complete, the client team demonstrates operational competency through hands-on exercises. If the team cannot operate independently, the engagement is not done.
- 30-Day Hypercare: Dedicated support period after go-live where EPC Group remains available for questions, issues, and guidance as the client team assumes full ownership.
NPS Tracking and Continuous Improvement
EPC Group measures client satisfaction through Net Promoter Score (NPS) at three points: mid-engagement pulse check, engagement close, and 90-day post-completion follow-up. Our process for scores below target:
- Any score below 8/10 triggers an automatic review by the practice director within 48 hours
- Root cause analysis is documented and shared with the client
- Corrective actions are implemented and tracked to completion
- Follow-up survey confirms the concern was addressed
- Patterns across multiple engagements drive systemic process improvements
We do not cherry-pick feedback. Every survey response — positive and negative — is reviewed in monthly leadership meetings. The uncomfortable feedback drives the most valuable improvements.
Frequently Asked Questions
What SLAs does EPC Group commit to in the Engagement Charter?
EPC Group's Engagement Charter defines specific response time SLAs: critical issues receive a response within 2 hours and a resolution plan within 4 hours; high-priority items get a response within 4 hours and resolution plan within 1 business day; standard requests receive a response within 1 business day. Every engagement includes weekly status reports delivered by Friday COB, bi-weekly stakeholder calls, and monthly executive summaries. These SLAs are contractual, not aspirational.
How does EPC Group handle escalations during an engagement?
Every EPC Group engagement has a documented three-tier escalation path. Tier 1: the engagement lead resolves operational issues within the committed SLA. Tier 2: the practice director intervenes for scope, timeline, or quality concerns within 24 hours of escalation. Tier 3: Errin O'Connor, CEO, is directly accessible for any client concern that reaches executive escalation — with a commitment to engage within 4 business hours. No client concern goes unaddressed for more than one business day.
What is included in EPC Group's knowledge transfer process?
EPC Group's knowledge transfer is structured, not improvised. Every engagement includes: documented architecture decisions with rationale, operational runbooks for day-2 support, recorded training sessions (not just slide decks), a 30-day hypercare period with dedicated support after go-live, and a knowledge transfer assessment where the client team demonstrates competency before EPC Group considers the engagement complete. We measure knowledge transfer success, not just delivery completion.
How does EPC Group measure client satisfaction during engagements?
We use a three-layer measurement system: pulse surveys at every major milestone (scored 1-10 with mandatory comments for any score below 8), a comprehensive NPS survey at engagement close, and a 90-day post-completion follow-up. Our current NPS score across all active engagements is tracked in real-time, and any score below 8 triggers an automatic review by the practice director. We publish our NPS trends internally monthly and discuss every detractor response in leadership meetings.
Can EPC Group provide references from similar engagements?
Yes. EPC Group maintains an active reference program organized by industry (healthcare, financial services, government, education), technology (Power BI, Fabric, Azure, Copilot, SharePoint), and engagement size. We provide 2-3 relevant references during the sales process, and references are selected to match your industry, scale, and technology requirements. Our reference clients have agreed to speak candidly about both strengths and areas where we improved during their engagements.
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