Ask what the first engagement costs, and when it ends

A procurement question worth asking before you sign any governance consultancy: what does the first engagement cost, and when does it end?

If the answer is a twelve month transformation programme, the risk sits entirely with you. You are paying for a relationship that has not proved anything yet.

The alternative is a bounded diagnostic. Two to four weeks, fixed scope, fixed fee, a defined artefact at the end.

What that buys: an independent read on where decisions actually get made, which risks have named owners and which have committee names, whether the reporting your board sees matches what the delivery teams know, and a ninety day roadmap you can execute with or without the person who wrote it.

That last part matters more than it sounds. A diagnostic that only works while you keep paying its author is not a diagnostic. It is a subscription.

If it goes well you have evidence to justify something larger. If it does not, you have spent three weeks instead of a year.

We would rather be judged on the first one.