--- title: "How We Work | ShanVic & Co." canonical: "https://shanvic.co.uk/how-we-work/" language: "en-GB" description: "See how ShanVic works from Evaluate through Cultivate, Accelerate, Anticipate, Illuminate, and Cooperate using The Cubed Method™." last_modified: "2026-10-14T13:22:25+00:00" --- How We Work # Start with the part that isn’t working. You don’t need to diagnose it first. Tell us what happened, what you’ve tried, and where things keep getting stuck. Evaluate is where we work out what we’re actually dealing with and use that evidence to decide what should happen next. Evaluate ## Start with what happened. A project ran late, and you want to understand why. We begin with that event before deciding whether the problem is scheduling or something that happened earlier in the work. We reconstruct what happened around the event. If someone waited for a decision, we find out where the information was and why it did not reach them. That usually tells us more than starting from a label like “communication problem” or a proposed fix like “automate this.” Either may turn out to be right, but we want to know before we start building around it. The deadline got our attention. Following it showed us where the failure began and how the business had been compensating for it. What comes out of Evaluate ## A Clarity Brief with evidence and opportunities. Evaluate begins with a Clarity Brief. You tell us what happened and what you want to become possible; we read that alongside what the business shows from the outside, then turn the evidence into three opportunities, each tied to an outcome worth reaching, and a first move you can start on. Where your own figures support it, the Brief shows what an opportunity could be worth. If a problem that appears in People actually begins in a Process, the Brief shows the evidence behind that conclusion. If two explanations still fit, both stay visible. The Brief distinguishes what we know from what needs testing. If the evidence is incomplete, we identify what to check before committing to further work. How the reading is grounded ## You can see what the Brief is built from. The Brief identifies the sources behind its findings, including information you provide and public material we use. You can check how a conclusion relates to that evidence. Conclusions don’t add to the evidence count. They can explain what we found, but writing a conclusion doesn’t create another piece of evidence for it. We work from what you tell us and what we can observe from public sources. We don’t see internal numbers, documents, or context unless you provide them. Before the final Brief reaches you, a person reviews the evidence and approves the written Brief. Evidence is read, challenged, and judged before it becomes a recommendation. What happens after the Brief ## The Brief is complete in itself. The narrated reading comes back in minutes, and the written Brief follows within 24 hours. The Clarity Brief is the first piece of work we do with you. There’s no fee for it, and the Brief is yours whether or not anything happens afterward. If the reading points to work we can help with, we can talk about that afterward. If it doesn’t, you still have the Brief. Implementation is optional and scoped separately. We can agree on a defined project or ongoing support, continuing only while that support is useful. [Begin a Clarity Brief →](https://shanvic.co.uk/clarity-brief/) Next: Cultivate ## Preparing for implementation Once we understand the problem, Cultivate addresses what would prevent the proposed work from proceeding. [Continue to Cultivate →](#cultivate) Cultivate ## Make room for what comes next. Cultivate deals with the constraints closest to the work. A pricing approval path may still send every exception to one person, while a manual handoff keeps absorbing hours elsewhere in the operation. Cultivate clears enough financial and operational room for larger work to begin responsibly. A larger contract can expose limits that routine work has been masking. Pricing exceptions may still queue behind one senior decision-maker while the next two months of delivery capacity are already committed. Cultivate identifies what has to change before the organisation takes on more. A larger contract puts more pressure on a pricing path that already queues exceptions behind one decision-maker. Roadmap, repairs, and sequence ## Turn the direction into a plan the business can support. An early improvement belongs on the roadmap when later work depends on it. For example, resolving an invoicing delay may make cash available before the business hires someone. We schedule work around its dependencies. A hire that depends on improved cash flow needs to follow the work that will make that cash available. ![Three people tending a shared garden, each contributing a different part of the work.](https://static.shanvic.com/wp-content/themes/shanvic/assets/img/illustrations/begin-cultivate-growing-capacity.webp) Before we commit ## Check what the plan asks of the business. We check whether the business can provide what each part of the plan requires. A hire may be affordable, for example, while the team still lacks time to train the person. A good opportunity can create another problem even when the opportunity itself is sound. We adjust the sequence until we know what can start now, what needs preparation, and what has to wait. Next: Accelerate ## Preparing for higher demand Once the main constraints have been addressed, Accelerate examines how the business will handle more demand. We check where additional work would increase coordination or recreate a bottleneck. [Continue to Accelerate →](#accelerate) Accelerate ## Scale what works. Demand can rise faster than the organisation’s ability to coordinate it. A team may manage ten projects because experienced staff know the exceptions and where each decision belongs. Add five more and the same approval path can become a queue. Accelerate changes the system so the organisation can serve more demand without the same proportional increase in coordination and manual work. As demand rises, the approval path starts to slow the work. Accelerate moves routine decisions closer to the teams that already have the context to make them. ## The work should grow faster than the overhead. At today’s volume, experienced staff can answer questions as they appear because they still see enough of the work to know where each decision belongs. With more projects, approval and handoff traffic can grow faster than delivery itself. The chart tracks the separation we’re looking for: demand served continues to rise while manual overhead increases more slowly. That gap is where scale becomes economically useful. **Illustrative scaling relationship: demand served should pull away from manual overhead.** Demand servedManual overhead ## Growth changes how the business has to work. A process that worked at ten projects may fail at fifteen because the people who knew the exceptions can no longer see every handoff. Once more staff and customers rely on it, local knowledge stops being enough to coordinate the work. Accelerate may change the decision path or the tooling around it. The specific change depends on where added volume alters how the organisation works and where judgement still belongs with a person. Next: Anticipate ## Prepare for decisions with longer lead times. Scale brings decisions with longer lead times and larger consequences. Customer concentration, supplier dependency, staffing thresholds, and location commitments can become expensive before they feel urgent, so Anticipate begins working on them while the business still has options. [Continue to Anticipate →](#anticipate) Anticipate ## Work on the next decision before it becomes urgent. A large account may provide strong sales while committing much of the team’s time. We examine what accepting that work would mean for other customers and future commitments. Anticipate moves those decisions earlier, while the business still has options. We gather enough evidence to decide what deserves preparation now and what can remain open. A larger contract can increase revenue while changing capacity, delivery, and what the business can pursue next. Anticipate brings those consequences into the decision before commitment. Opportunity Premonition ## Keep worthwhile future paths within reach. With Opportunity Premonition, ShanVic identifies a future path that could be useful and works backward from the conditions it needs. We look for the commitments, capacity limits, or dependencies that could make the path disappear or become needlessly expensive. Keeping an option available may require a modest commitment now. We might retain a second supplier while checking whether reliance on the first is becoming a problem, then revise the plan as the evidence changes. ![Three people looking across open terrain towards several paths leading to a town in the distance.](https://static.shanvic.com/wp-content/themes/shanvic/assets/img/illustrations/begin-anticipate-future-paths.webp) What we prepare ## Set the conditions for a better decision. Preparation should be proportional to the decision. A small customer test can help establish demand before the business invests in developing a new offer. The next step depends on evidence. A clear customer response or a supplier warning may justify more work; weak demand or a changed constraint may tell us to stop. That keeps the investment appropriate to what the business knows now. Next: Illuminate ## Reviewing the results Anticipate prepares before a consequential decision is made. Once the business acts, Illuminate examines what changed in practice, including effects nobody expected. [Continue to Illuminate →](#illuminate) Illuminate ## See whether the system is actually working. An on-time delivery does not tell us how much extra work it took. We check whether the handoff improved or someone still had to stay late to complete it. Revenue can rise while dependence on one customer grows. Illuminate examines those changes alongside the reported result. Illuminate compares the expected change with what happened. We retain the improvement and address any dependency that still required extra work. Validating the work ## Compare what we expected with what actually happened. We begin with the change we expected, then compare it with work as people experienced it. Someone with responsibility and enough authority must be able to respond. ### What we expected Name the change before reading the result. If handoffs should be faster, identify the evidence that would show it: less waiting, fewer corrections, or a shorter cycle time. ### What happened Look at People, Processes, and Products in the work itself. Include workarounds, exceptions, and any hidden intervention that made a weak process look successful. ### Who responds Name the person responsible for the result and check that they have the authority to act. If the decision belongs to someone else, make that dependency explicit. Accountability ## Make the result clear enough to act on. When a measure repeatedly identifies a problem, the finding needs to reach someone who can address it. We agree on who will respond and what decision the evidence is meant to support. Illuminate can also show that our own assumption was wrong. A Process may behave differently once people use it every day, and we need to change our reading rather than defend the earlier plan. Useful measurement is usually small: a few measures tied to a decision and a named owner. They stay because someone uses them to choose what happens next. Next: Cooperate ## Turn the evidence into a shared move. Once we understand what changed, Cooperate brings the people affected into the decision about how to respond. That includes people who will deal with the consequences as well as those doing the work. [Continue to Cooperate →](#cooperate) Cooperate ## Get the right parts of the business moving together. Cooperate deals with decisions whose consequences cross boundaries. Sales can agree a larger deal while delivery absorbs the extra work; Finance may discover the margin later, and support may inherit a promise it never helped define. Cooperate gives the affected teams enough information to assess a proposal before anyone commits. We establish who can make the decision and who will be responsible for the work it creates. The same decision produces a different result when the people affected by its consequences can influence it before commitment. Shared movement ## Make the next move clear. Before work starts, we document the agreement and who has authority to act on it. The people involved should be able to refer to the same decision when questions arise. ### Share the relevant information Give affected people enough context to understand the decision, its dependencies, and the tradeoffs already accepted. Different teams may see different risks, so their view needs to enter the agreement before work begins. ### Match responsibility with authority If someone owns an outcome, they need the authority and capacity to act. Otherwise questions bounce back to the same bottleneck and ownership exists only on paper. ### Keep the consequence with the decision The agreement records what each team needs to provide and when. If a condition changes, the people affected can refer to the decision and establish who needs to respond. Participation, not compliance ## The people doing the work need room to influence it. Participation doesn’t mean smoothing away disagreement so a decision can move faster. The people closest to the work often see constraints, risks, and Product effects that aren’t visible from elsewhere, and their experience can change the decision before the cost is fixed in place. They still need boundaries: which parts are open, who decides, and where their authority begins. Within those boundaries, people need enough room to question the plan and act on what they see without turning every judgement into a permission request. ![Three people setting up a neighborhood event together, each working on a different part of the setup.](https://static.shanvic.com/wp-content/themes/shanvic/assets/img/illustrations/begin-cooperate-shared-work.webp) The Cube turns again ## What happens next gives us better evidence. After the work begins, we check whether people could act on the agreement. A delayed handoff can show where responsibility or information was still unclear. If another pass through the Method would help, we use what the business has learned to decide what needs attention next. [Begin a Clarity Brief →](https://shanvic.co.uk/clarity-brief/)[Contact us →](https://shanvic.co.uk/contact/)