We don’t scale for scale’s sake. While others chase headcount, we focus on outcomes—tight teams, clear ownership, and lasting impact.

Interestingly enough, as small as Futuredraft is relative to the "big 5" and other consulting firms, we tackle big projects for big companies and have a very high rate of knocking the ball out of the park. A core part of our approach has always been to achieve great things with a right-sized and right-skilled team.

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The goal of many consulting organizations is to keep adding more people to every work-stream; butts in seats = billable hours. Client partners are highly ($$) motivated to grow the footprint of every project. Their bonus is connected to the rate at which they are adding resources to increase burn rate.

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How this model came to be

Historically, this staffing model comes from the days of large-scale ERP integration when it took a huge team of programmers to reverse engineer 40+ years of COBOL and FORTRAN business rules and migrate to object-oriented platforms. The sheer scale of this work (and the "find-the-needle-in-the-haystack" nature of it) was something that scale lent value to. This was a very specific sort of problem that spawned a huge industry that was needed to solve it. But this was all largely before the internet even emerged - before cloud computing, AI, SaaS, etc.

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I've worked for and with these companies and see how these practices manifest even today:

• Build an office on the client's campus
• Continually add people to the roster while increasing scope along the way
• Deliver on “requirements” and protect the team from change or iteration
• Check in with the client on occasion to tell them their burn rate is up 25% each quarter…

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This focus on permanence and scale makes flexibility, directional change, and innovation a big challenge. Big teams tend to run on inertia - a container ship vs. a catamaran. 

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Our clients tell us that the results they see from these engagements are diluted and missing the mark for innovation. Big firms grow their margins by implementing ready-to-wear solutions that lack elegance and ignore the nuances of their customer's needs and behaviors.

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When it comes to digital transformation, a lighter, more nimble vessel is needed. Processes like concept development, pilots, and rapid iteration are more fun and impactful when the team is small, smart, collaborative, and can pivot on a dime. Teams can and should be right-sized just below the threshold of diminishing returns.

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A better approach

It's been our experience that tackling big problems with highly collaborative small teams leads to lasting, successful outcomes. Our goal is to do the work that needs to be done, carefully avoiding unnecessary documentation, hand-wavy diagrams, and deep dives into uninformed or unproductive directions. Core to our philosophy is keeping projects and processes lean by leveraging the knowledge of the combined Futuredraft and client teams. Close collaboration with our clients makes them solution owners, advocates, and creative contributors from the get-go.

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I do not dispute that big teams have their value. There are many situations where a big, tightly integrated, multi-disciplinary team is needed to see a major transformation through. There have been many instances where Futuredraft has integrated into such teams, bringing innovation and user-centered design to the crossroads of product management and delivery. Our small teams add big value by providing leadership as workshop facilitators, visionaries, highly experienced IC's, and objective eyes.

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