Report Hours Teardown

Illustrative 24-person environmental consultancy

Phase I ESA workflow · Prepared by Ian Cross · Public example

Illustrative example
Not a client result

~28.5h

targeted each month in the first workflow.

The full teardown models ~50.5 recoverable hours across all assembly steps. The Sprint scopes only the photo pipeline shown below.

Inputs from a 25-minute call

Reports per month10 Phase I ESAs

Hours per report19 hours

Blended rate$150 / hour

Typical fixed fee$3,200

Systems todaySharePoint, Word, phone cameras, EDR records, Excel photo log

Where 19 hours go7 hours are assembly

Judgment: 12hAssembly: 7h

Assembly opportunity

Step	Hours / month	Modeled recovery	Recovered hours
Photo offload, rename, geotag, and sortFirst scope	15	90%	13.5
Photo log placement, numbering, and captionsFirst scope	20	75%	15
Template population and cross-references	25	60%	15
Historical exhibit collation	10	70%	7

First-scope recovery~28.5h / monthfrom 35 monthly photo-pipeline hours

Recovered capacity$4,275 / monthcapacity value at the stated blended rate, not guaranteed cash savings

Modeled payback~6.6 weeksor capacity for ~1.5 additional reports per month

Recommendation

Scope the photo pipeline first.

Start with the photo pipeline. It is deterministic, visible, and reversible. Keep captions and professional judgment with the reviewer.

Proposed Sprint: $6,500, two weeks, one workflow, built in the client's systems. If measured recovery is below 20 hours per month, the final balance is waived.

What this is: a worked example showing the teardown method. Inputs come from published industry ranges and are deliberately labeled illustrative. A real teardown replaces every input, step, and percentage with the firm's own process.

Decision rule: if a standard product already closes the gap, recommend it. If the scoped workflow cannot clear the 20-hour threshold, do not sell the Sprint.

Sources used for this example