Build Oversight — virtual CTO services, on the client's side

Virtual CTO services, working for the client and not the vendor

You have hired a development agency — often offshore, often one you cannot evaluate. You are paying for work you cannot judge, reported by the people doing it. Reporting turns reassuring rather than factual, and you find out the real gap at acceptance, when it is expensive.

This is outsourced CTO oversight bought by the client: I grade the vendor's work against written criteria, every sprint, in writing. It is the same job a fractional CTO does for a company that has one — except this one is pointed at a single question, is priced monthly, and has no interest in the vendor keeping the contract.

What happens every month

Scope and acceptance criteria, reviewed

First month, in depth: what was agreed, what is testable, and what is written loosely enough that both sides can claim they were right.

Every sprint graded

Each sprint scored against those criteria — delivered, partially delivered, or not delivered — with the evidence attached. A grade with no evidence is an opinion.

The UAT gate, run properly

Acceptance testing conducted as a gate rather than a formality, on the criteria written before the sprint, not on a demo path the vendor chose.

A written monthly verdict

Two pages: what was delivered, what slipped, what it means for the date, and a go/no-go on every release. Written so you can forward it to the vendor without editing it.

An escalation view you can act on

What to raise now, what to watch, and what is a genuine vendor risk rather than a normal bad week.

How it starts

Week 1 — setup

Reading the contract, the scope and the backlog, and establishing what "done" currently means in practice. This is the one-off setup fee, charged in the first month only.

Week 2 — the first grading cycle

The first sprint is graded and you see the format before committing to a second month.

Monthly, thereafter

Rolling, cancellable, no minimum term. Maximum two clients at a time, because this work only functions if I actually read every sprint.

Why me, and where the conflict is

I run delivery at a software agency. I know exactly where corners get cut, because I have had to stop people cutting them. That is also why I decline any engagement overseeing a Moroccan agency, and why the Digi4 relationship is disclosed in writing before any introduction. An oversight role with an undisclosed conflict is worth less than no oversight at all.

A worked example

A client was six sprints into a $90,000 build and every report was green. Graded against the written acceptance criteria, three of the six sprints were partially delivered: the vendor had been demoing the happy path and deferring error handling, permissions and data migration to a phase that did not exist in the contract. Caught at sprint six, it was renegotiated at no cost. Caught at acceptance, it would have been a change request in the high five figures.

Who this is not for

• Anyone who wants a project manager for their vendor's team — I grade the work, I do not run it
• A vendor relationship that needs to end: that is a decision, and you can get to it faster with a Delivery Risk Audit
• Anyone who wants the verdicts softened before they are sent

What is not included

I do not manage the vendor's team, replan their sprints, or take on any delivery commitment on their behalf. I do not write code on the project. Setup is billed once, in the first month.