The same hands
The person who agrees the work stays close to the person who does it. You are not handed to a layer of coordination.
Approach
A calm sequence, with the door left open at every step.
Engagements are agreed in writing before substantial work begins. The sequence below is how a typical one moves. A discovery can be the whole engagement. A build does not have to become a retainer.
01 Principles
Six habits we keep even when a deadline is loud.
They are working rules, not a certificate. If a project needs an exception, the exception is written down too.
Writing before widening
Decisions, scope, and changes are captured while they are still small enough to argue with.
Slices you can refuse
You see working software early, while redirecting it is still inexpensive.
Technology you can live with
Tools are chosen because a careful team can operate them. The reason for a choice is part of the delivery.
Ownership in the agreement
The contract names who owns the code, the accounts, and the data. We do not leave that to goodwill.
A clean exit
At the end you have the repository, the access, and notes a new person can follow without a private tour.
02 Phases
What each movement is for, and what it leaves behind.
You can commission the first and decline the rest. Many good engagements are exactly that.
01
Listen
We start from the situation as it is, not from a template proposal. Who uses this, what fails, what must not change, and which date is real.
You leave this step with a shared picture, even if the picture is “this should not be built yet”.
- A conversation or a written brief
- The constraints named in plain language
- A yes, a no, or a narrower question
02
Frame
The recommendation is a document: the problem, the options we would actually defend, the risks, and a first scope. It is meant to be read by someone who was not on the call.
This is the whole of a consulting engagement, and the front door of a build.
- A written recommendation
- A proposed first slice
- Risks called out before they are expensive
03
Build
Programming proceeds in reviewable slices. You see the thing while it can still change character. We would rather show a narrow, working path than a wide sketch that only lives in a deck.
Scope changes are welcome when they are named. Silent drift is how projects lose their shape.
- Working software in stages
- Source control from the start
- A record of what changed and why
04
Hand over
We walk the system with the people who will live with it. Notes cover how to run it, where the decisions sit, and what we would watch in the first weeks.
If you want us to stay, we stay on a retainer with the work still named. If you do not, the handover is the product.
- Repository and access
- Run notes and a walkthrough
- A retainer only by choice
03 Working together
Remote by default. Direct on purpose.
The registered seat is in Rannaküla, Lääne-Nigula parish, Lääne County. Client sessions are held remotely, or in person when a meeting is worth the journey and both sides agree to it. The registered address is for contracts and correspondence, not a walk-in studio.
Calls happen when a conversation will settle something faster than a page. Writing happens when a decision needs a record. You will not be asked to live inside a tool you do not already use if email and a shared repository will do.
- English or Estonian.
- Your repository and your hosting account, whenever that is possible.
- Access limited to what the work requires, and removed when the work ends.
- Invoices by email from A Koppelmaa OÜ, with VAT number EE102803930.
04 What you hold at the end
A result you can keep without keeping us.
The exact list is fixed in the agreement. These are the pieces we expect a finished engagement to include.
The software
A working system matched to the scope we agreed, including the unglamorous edges: empty states, failures, and the path a new user actually takes.
The source
A repository you control, with the history of the work intact. Libraries and services credited under their own terms.
The notes
How to run it, how a deploy happens, which decisions were deliberate, and what we would look at first if something misbehaves.