Statera

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Methodology

One improvement, working in ninety days.

FAROL is how we deliver. It rests on a single conviction: nobody should be asked to believe a five-year programme. They should be shown one thing working, inside a single budget cycle, run by their own people.

FAROL — the lighthouse.

Farol is the Portuguese word for lighthouse, and the method is named after its second phase. One improvement, lit up, visible from a distance, showing the rest of the organisation where the channel runs.

It was built from public-sector digitisation programmes — what made them work in Rwanda, Estonia and Cape Verde and, studied just as closely, what made them fail elsewhere. It applies anywhere the process is regulated and the numbers have to hold, which is why it now runs in private operations too.

90days

One improvement, working

3weeks

Fixed-price diagnosis

50%cut

Steps removed before code

4gates

Kill criteria on day zero

The five principles

Five commitments the work is held to.

Any choice that breaks a principle is escalated to the sponsor with an alternative attached. There are no silent exceptions.

  • Focus on the outcome

    Every phase opens with a target metric, never with a requirements list.

  • Abolish before you digitise

    The process is cut first. Digitising twelve steps only automates the waste.

  • Rhythm of ninety days

    No phase takes longer than ninety days to deliver value someone can see.

  • Operated locally from day one

    Your own staff run it from the start. Transfer is the method, not a closing phase.

  • Ledger of evidence

    Each phase produces measurable proof that funds and justifies the one after it.

The four phases

Each phase answers one question and ends at a gate.

  • F0 3 weeks

    X-Ray

    Where is the money, and where is the pain?

    Gate

    A business case signed off by the sponsor.

  • F1 90 days

    Lighthouse

    Can we deliver value that is visible to a user?

    Gate

    Target metrics reached — or the programme stops.

  • F2 6–12 months

    Foundation

    Can the organisation carry scale on its own?

    Gate

    Three services running with no external team.

  • F3 continuous

    Factory

    Does the machine replicate itself?

    Gate

    Pipeline run by your own staff, unaided.

No gate, no phase.

Every phase has an exit gate, and kill criteria fixed on day zero rather than negotiated on day eighty-nine. If the ninety-day targets are missed, the programme stops or pivots — openly.

That is not a caveat buried in a contract. It is the offer. A five-year programme asks a client to carry the risk of being wrong for five years; this one settles the question in ninety days, and the risk of the answer is ours.

Governance is deliberately small.

One sponsor with real authority. A delivery unit of seven people or fewer, reporting directly. Forty-five minutes a week: metrics, blockers, decisions. Every decision is written down, and a blocked one escalates within forty-eight hours. No standing committees.

What the gates measure

Four outcomes, agreed before the work starts.

A platform nobody opens is a cost line. Every engagement is judged against these four, and how each one will be measured is settled before it begins — not argued about at the gate.

  • Innovation

    Digital tools, open data and user-centred design applied to how an organisation actually operates — including the parts still on paper because nobody asked.

    • Interfaces designed with the people who use them daily
    • Questions answered from existing data before new data is collected
    • Open formats, so the next supplier inherits a system rather than a hostage

  • Efficiency

    Systems that process, automate and validate. The measure is not how modern the stack looks — it is how many hours a quarter your team stops spending on reconciliation.

    • Submissions validated on arrival, not at year end
    • One source of record shared across departments
    • Manual re-keying removed from the reporting cycle

  • Foresight

    Modelling and forecasting that show the shape of a decision before the money is committed to it — and the range around it, not just the central line.

    • Scenarios run in minutes rather than weeks
    • Plans kept current between budget cycles
    • Ranges published alongside the central case

  • Clarity

    Data quality assessment, monitoring and reporting. A figure is finished when the person presenting it can say where it came from without leaving the room.

    • Data quality scored and visible, never assumed
    • Every figure traceable back to the record it came from
    • Reporting a board can read without a briefing first

Studied, not improvised

Built on programmes that worked, and on the ones that cost billions.

National digitisation programmes across ten countries were read closely — including the failures, which taught more than the successes. What survived that reading became rules we hold ourselves to on every engagement.

  • Rwanda
  • Estonia
  • Kenya
  • Ukraine
  • United Kingdom
  • Canada
  • Australia
  • Netherlands
  • India
  • Togo

Start with three weeks.

F0 is a fixed-price, three-week diagnosis: a quantified case, the priority chosen, and a ninety-day plan ready for decision. You see how we work before committing to a programme.

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