Start here · Updated October 2026
On Stefan Gauci Scicluna’s site, owners who want help should start with the free 30-minute call, anyone not ready to talk with the founder health check, and readers with Beyond the KPIs or The Public Ledger. Those are the three most common starting points; the five routes below cover the rest, and if yours is still missing, drop us a line on the contact page.
Book the free 30-minute video call and tell us what keeps going wrong. Before we hang up we will tell you, plainly, whether the Performance, Compliance and Quality Diagnostic would earn its fee in your firm. Now and then it would not, and you will hear that from us too.
You are probably after the Fractional COO role. Somebody from the practice comes in for one to eight days a month, partly at your premises, and Stefan leads it. It opens with an Operations Diagnostic lasting either one day or four, for a fixed fee.
Have a go at the founder health check. It asks twelve questions about compliance, quality and operations, takes around four minutes and never asks for your email; the score is worked out on your own screen. If you already know what the problem is, Which model when? goes through seven common ones and tells you which models we would pick up for each.
Beyond the KPIs is our series on compliance, quality, procurement and training, told through what happens in real firms. The Public Ledger is where Stefan publishes his essays on the economy, the state and public policy, and he writes those in a personal capacity. There are six books too.
A partner, a college, a reporter or a buyer doing due diligence will usually want Stefan’s About page and CV. How we run an engagement, and how we look after a client’s information, is on the Trust page. The references and the certificates come with enough detail to check each one with whoever issued it.
If you want our help
Most of our engagements go through the same three stages, in this order, and you can walk away after any one of them. Should the diagnostic show your firm needs nothing more from us, you will hear that in the findings call.
We run two kinds. The Performance, Compliance and Quality Diagnostic is for owners worried about how their management team works, or about compliance or quality specifically. The Operations Diagnostic is the first step for anyone weighing up a Fractional COO. Still torn between them after reading the table? Bring it up on the free call, since helping you choose is one of the reasons the call exists.
| Performance, Compliance and Quality Diagnostic | Operations Diagnostic | |
|---|---|---|
| Choose it when | The management team, compliance or quality is the worry | You are thinking about a Fractional COO |
| Length | Two or three days | One day or four days |
| Fixed fee | €2,250 (£1,900 or $2,550) | One day €990 (£850 or $1,100) Four days €2,950 (£2,500 or $3,350) |
| Scored against | ISO 37301, ISO 31000 and ISO 9001 where they apply, plus four to six performance measures | How the operation is run, the compliance file, and the main figures on day one |
| You get | Findings, worst first, and a 90-day plan | Findings, plus a 90-day plan with the four-day version |
| Fee credit | In full against a build project signed within 60 days | In full against your first package signed within 60 days |
| Leads to | Build, then Keep, Assure or Assure Plus | A Fractional COO package |
Swipe the table sideways to see both columns.
Fees exclude VAT. Both diagnostics follow our 8X Method.
No. The first call costs nothing, and you only pay once you have agreed to a diagnostic at the fixed fee shown here.
Stefan takes the first call himself, and he leads every engagement from then on. Ahead of any paid work you get the names of the team members on your job, with a line on what each will be doing.
Say so on the call. Some owners come to us knowing precisely what they want built, a risk register say, or a procedure for handling complaints, and then we would normally quote for that job directly without a diagnostic first.
