Consultation
Think before you build.
Consultation at Abstract-Technology is not a door-opener for an implementation contract. It's specific engagement types - each with fixed scope, and a written deliverable you own at the end. If the right answer is "don't do the project" or "pick a different partner," that's a legitimate outcome. We'd rather tell you that up front than discover it at later.
How we consult
Three principles. Every engagement.
Fixed scope
Every engagement has a defined scope, a defined deliverable, and a defined price in writing before work starts. No open-ended retainers. No hourly creep. If the scope changes mid-engagement, we stop and write a new statement of work.
Senior people, always.
Consultation is delivered by senior architects and instructional-design leads - the people who have run production learning ecosystems at scale. You meet the named consultant in the discovery call.
"Don't build it" is a valid outcome.
If the audit concludes that your existing platform is fine, that the project shouldn't happen, or that a different partner is a better fit - we tell you that. We have no consultation-to-implementation conversion target, because that's the quickest way to corrupt the advice.
Learning Ecosystem Architecture Review
You already run an LMS. You're wondering whether it's still the right shape for where you're going - multi-tenant branching, AI layer, analytics export, mobile rollout, integration creep. We audit the whole ecosystem against where you need it in 2-3 years and recommend what to keep, what to refactor, and what to replace.
Current-state architecture diagram
Integration landscape & pain points
Fit-gap analysis against target state
Prioritised refactor roadmap with effort bands
Platform Selection & Vendor Evaluation
You're evaluating whether to move to Open edX, or staying on your current platform, or picking something else entirely. We build a scored evaluation matrix around your actual requirements, score the candidates honestly - including ourselves - and give you a written recommendation with the reasoning explicit enough to share with procurement.
Requirements workshop with your stakeholders
Weighted scoring framework
Candidate evaluation with evidence
Written recommendation & TCO comparison
Learning Strategy & Programme Design
For organisations building a new learning programme from scratch - a corporate academy, a MOOC portfolio, a compliance-training rollout, an Erasmus+ capacity-building scheme. We work with your programme lead to define audience segments, learning outcomes, assessment strategy, and a delivery model that matches your operational reality.
Audience segmentation & learner-journey design
Learning outcomes mapped to Bloom levels
Assessment & certification strategy
Content production plan with effort estimates
AI Readiness Assessment
You're being asked whether to add AI to your learning environment - course-authoring assistants, learner chatbots, administrative automation. We assess your content, your data posture, your EU AI Act obligations, and your actual use cases, and tell you which AI features will add value in your context and which are hype. Grounded in Bloom's taxonomy, not prompt-theatre.
Content & data readiness audit
EU AI Act compliance posture
Use-case scoring with realistic ROI bands
Pilot plan for the top one or two features
Accessibility & Compliance Audit
Your platform needs to meet WCAG 2.1 AA, EN 301 549, BITV 2.0 or a sector-specific accessibility regulation - and you need to know, honestly, where it stands today. We run a structured audit, document every non-conformance with severity and effort to fix, and deliver an accessibility statement you can publish alongside a credible remediation plan.
Structured audit against WCAG 2.1 AA
Per-finding severity, evidence & repro steps
Effort-sized remediation plan
Draft accessibility statement for publication
Procurement & Tender Support
For public-sector buyers and large institutions where the procurement process is the hard part. We help you write the technical requirements, draft the evaluation criteria, respond to vendor questions, and assess incoming bids against a framework that will survive a procurement challenge. We don't bid where we advise, and we say so on the cover page.
Technical requirements drafting
Evaluation criteria & scoring rubric
Vendor Q&A response support
Bid evaluation with documented reasoning
Our approach
How an engagement runs
Free discovery call
30 minutes. We figure out together whether consultation is what you actually need, and which of the six types fits. If none fit, we say so.
Scope & SoW
You get a written statement of work with scope, deliverable, duration, named consultant, and fee - before any billable work begins.
Work & checkpoints
Structured interviews, artefact review, workshops. Weekly checkpoints, not status slides. You see progress as it happens.
Deliverable & handover
Written document, presented in a working session with your stakeholders. Recommendations you can act on without us.
Consultation FAQ
The questions that come up on the discovery call.
No. Every consultation engagement is a standalone deliverable you own. If the outcome is that you should stay on your current platform, pick a different partner, or not launch a learning ecosystem at all - that's a valid outcome. We don't have a consultation-to-implementation conversion target, because conversion targets are exactly what corrupts consultant advice.
The initial 30-minute discovery call is free - that's where we figure out together whether consultation is what you actually need, and which engagement types fits. Paid consultations are fixed-scope engagements with fixed fees and written deliverables. We publish scope and timeline up front; no surprise invoices, no retainer creep.
Our deepest expertise is Open edX and the open-source EdTech stack around it. We can give informed opinions on Moodle, Canvas, Totara and commercial LMSes, but a genuinely vendor-neutral analyst firm may serve better if your evaluation is truly open and broad. We'll say so on the discovery call if that's the case.
Senior architects and instructional-design leads — people who have run production learning ecosystems at scale. You meet the named consultant in the discovery call and they stay on the engagement through delivery. Not all agencies run it that way; we do because handovers between salespeople and practitioners are where consultation advice loses resolution.
Depends on the engagement type and current pipeline. Most engagements start within 2-3 weeks of a signed statement of work. Public-sector engagements with procurement overhead take longer - usually determined by your process, not ours.
Bring the question. We'll bring a scope.
Book a 30-minute discovery call. Bring the actual question you're wrestling with - "should we migrate?", "should we add AI?", "is our platform still the right shape?" - and we'll tell you which engagements fits, what it would cost, and whether it's worth doing.
