The EPC Group Engagement Charter: How Every Engagement Is Scoped, Run and Verified

How scope is fixed

Every engagement starts from a written Statement of Work that names the deliverables, the acceptance criteria for each, the client decisions the schedule depends on, the environments in scope, and the assumptions the estimate rests on. If a thing is not in that list, it is not in scope — and the document says so in plain words rather than leaving it to be argued later.

The scoping call before the Statement of Work is where this is earned. The senior architect who will lead the delivery runs that call, asks about the tenant, the data, the regulatory posture and the people who will own the result, and writes the scope from what was heard. The person who estimates the work is the person accountable for it.

How change is controlled

Scope changes are normal; surprise invoices are not. A change to deliverables, environments, timeline or the assumptions in the Statement of Work is written up as a change order before any work on it begins: what changes, why, the effect on schedule and on cost, and who on the client side approves it. Nothing in a change order is billed until it is signed.

Three things trigger a change order and are named in advance: a new deliverable or environment; a client decision that arrives later than the schedule assumed, when it moves the plan; and a change in the regulatory or data boundary the design was built for. Anything that fits inside the written scope is absorbed without one.

What "senior-architect-led" means in practice

The architect named on the Statement of Work designs the solution, leads the delivery, and is in the room for every steering meeting from kickoff to acceptance. The role does not hand off to a junior team after the sale; the Statements of Work published in the Evidence Center show the pattern across two decades.

• Roles: one named senior architect accountable for design and delivery; an engagement lead for day-to-day coordination where the program size warrants it; an executive sponsor from EPC Group leadership, separate from the delivery team, for independent review and a second escalation path.
• Cadence: a written status report every week covering accomplishments mapped to deliverables, next week’s plan with owners, risks, blockers awaiting client decisions, and hours consumed against plan; a stakeholder call on a fixed fortnightly rhythm; a monthly executive summary; a quarterly business review on retainer and multi-phase programs. Every communication lives in the shared project workspace, not in inboxes.
• Deliverable acceptance: each deliverable is accepted against the criteria written in the Statement of Work, in writing, by the named client approver. Knowledge transfer is part of acceptance — architecture decision records, operational runbooks written for the client team’s skill level, recorded training on the client’s own implementation, and a hands-on competency check before the engagement is considered complete, followed by a defined hypercare period.

How pricing works

This page carries no figures. Pricing is quoted after the scoping call, in the Statement of Work, and it takes one of two shapes. Fixed-scope: a defined set of deliverables for a fixed fee, with the acceptance criteria written down; the fee does not move unless a change order is signed. Block of hours: a pre-purchased block drawn down against a written plan, with consumption reported in every weekly status report so the remaining balance is never a surprise.

What is included is stated in the Statement of Work: the deliverables, the knowledge-transfer artefacts, the hypercare period, and the status and review cadence above. What is not included is also stated — third-party licences, Microsoft list prices, and work outside the written scope — so the first invoice matches the document that was signed.

How issues are escalated

Every engagement has a documented escalation path, shared with every client stakeholder at kickoff. Escalation is encouraged early; a concern raised in the first week is far cheaper to resolve than the same concern raised in the second month, and raising one is never held against anyone.

• Tier 1 — Engagement lead: the day-to-day contact, authorized to make tactical decisions and resolve delivery issues within the approved scope.
• Tier 2 — Practice director: for scope disagreements, timeline concerns or quality issues the engagement lead cannot resolve within one business day; authorized to add people, change approach or adjust method.
• Tier 3 — The CEO, Errin O’Connor: available for any concern that reaches executive escalation, and personally engaged on each one. The path is documented for every client whether or not it is ever used.
• Priority commitments written into the Statement of Work: critical issues (production down, data-exposure risk, compliance breach) are acknowledged within two hours with a resolution plan within four; high-priority issues within four hours with a plan inside one business day; standard items within one business day. Missed commitments are flagged in the weekly report with a root cause, not hidden.

How clients verify us

Trust should not have to be taken on the strength of a web page. The Evidence Center publishes contracts, Statements of Work and payment records from real engagements, each with a stated verification class and the client named where permission exists. The case studies carry a delivery-status row and the lead architect where the document names one. The recognition page lists every G2 report by date, and the G2 profile carries the client reviews behind them. References from comparable organizations are available on request during scoping, and the fit page says plainly which engagements EPC Group should not take.