TMG Assessment Kit — Documentation

Design Philosophy

1. Thinking partner, not interviewer. The client often has a fuzzy picture of their own operations. The assessment helps them sharpen it — not just catalog it. Questions are open-ended, conversational, and probe vague answers rather than accepting them.
2. Make the abstract concrete. Instead of asking "rate your lead tracking pain 1–5," the assessment asks "walk me through what happens when a new lead comes in." The walk-through reveals the process, the breakpoints, and the unmade decisions.
3. Challenge vagueness. Short or vague answers trigger adaptive follow-ups that probe deeper. "It depends" or "not sure" are not accepted as final — they signal a gray area that gets surfaced and named in the report.

How the Kit Works

Client enters assessment (guided or self-serve)
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  PHASE 1: Opening        ← Conversational, sets context
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  PHASE 2: Walkthrough     ← Process discovery via concrete scenarios
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  PHASE 3: Probes          ← Adaptive deep-dives, surface gray areas
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  PHASE 4: Domain          ← Industry-specific (Cannabis / Funeral / Nonprofit)
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  PHASE 5: Capacity        ← Budget, timeline, tech comfort
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  PHASE 6: Synthesis       ← Final framing questions
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  DIAGNOSTIC ENGINE        ← Scores clarity, ambiguity, readiness
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  DIAGNOSTIC REPORT        ← Consultation-style, not survey output

Phase 1: Opening

Conversational. Sets context and establishes baseline clarity.

Phase 2: Walkthrough

Process discovery via concrete scenarios. The core GSD technique: "walk me through using this."

Phase 3: Probes

Adaptive deep-dives that surface operational decisions and measure clarity.

Phase 4: Domain (Industry-Specific)

Appears for matching industries. Demonstrates domain expertise and surfaces industry-specific gray areas.

Phase 5: Capacity & Readiness

The budget questions are asked separately so each answer is a clean signal: current spend, comfortable monthly investment, and one-time setup capacity. "Not sure" answers are valid — they disable budget shaping for that axis (see Budget-Aware Pricing).

Phase 6: Synthesis

Diagnostic Engine

The engine measures three dimensions that together determine the recommendation — not just "what hurts" but "are you ready to fix it."

1. Operational Clarity (0–100) — How well-defined are the client's processes? Scored across up to 15 dimensions, from Business Vision Clarity through Priority Definition Clarity. Each dimension is scored based on answer specificity, vague signals, and concrete step descriptions.
2. Operational Ambiguity (0–100) — How many unmade decisions (gray areas) were surfaced? Each gray area is a specific operational decision the client hasn't made, mapped to a core system that would force the decision. Critical gray areas carry more weight than significant ones.
3. AI Readiness (0–100) — Can they actually implement now? Composed of four sub-scores: Data Readiness, Process Readiness, Team Readiness, and Budget Readiness. The overall score is the average of the four.

The engine also determines a Readiness Path — Foundation-First (start with the Infrastructure Kit to define processes before deploying technology), Direct Implementation (operations are defined, proceed to technology), or Hybrid (address foundational gaps while implementing in well-defined areas).

Each of the five core systems receives a Fit Score and an Ambiguity Score, which together determine its tier: Foundation, Primary, Secondary, Conditional, or Not Recommended.

Budget-Aware Pricing

Prices are always honest — market-anchored to TMG's rate card and never scaled down to fit a budget. What the stated budget shapes is which systems are recommended now versus deferred to later phases.

1. Budget-fit walk. Recommended systems are admitted phase by phase, keeping running setup and monthly totals within the client's stated investment bands. When a phase would push past a band, that phase and every later phase is deferred with a revisit note.
2. Deferred ≠ dropped. Deferred systems keep their real prices and appear in a separate "When You're Ready" section of the report — excluded from phased totals and package math, but visible as future options.
3. Starter path. If the budget can't cover even the first system, the report recommends the smallest meaningful engagement — the Infrastructure Kit when available, otherwise the single cheapest system — and defers the rest. The banner says so plainly, including when the starter itself sits above the stated band.
4. "Not sure" skips shaping. Clients who need to see the value first get the full honest roadmap with no deferrals — which doubles as the value-justification those leads need.

Compatibility: the budget answers are stored in the result snapshot (statedBudget), so pricing works identically for live assessments and stored reports. Snapshots from before this feature are treated as "not sure" — full roadmap, no shaping.

Diagnostic Report

The output is a consultation-style report, not a survey output. Contains:

1. 1. Diagnostic Summary — Narrative paragraph + headline scores (Clarity, Ambiguity, AI Readiness, Path)
2. 2. Key Findings — Bullet-pointed findings from the diagnostic
3. 3. Unmade Decisions — Each gray area with severity, description, related system, and decision needed
4. 4. Operational Clarity Scorecard — Visual bars across all dimensions with evidence
5. 5. AI Readiness Breakdown — Data, Process, Team, Budget cards
6. 6. Recommended Path — Foundation-First / Direct / Hybrid with reasoning
7. 7. System Recommendations — Dual fit/ambiguity scores, signals, related gray areas
8. 8. Estimated Investment — Computed pricing for each recommended system, grouped by implementation phase, with a package summary. When the client stated a budget, a fit banner shows the stated bands vs. plan totals, and systems that don't fit are listed under "When You're Ready" instead of the priced phases.
9. 9. Next Steps — Four-step engagement roadmap

Delivery Modes

Industry-Specific Branches

Cannabis (METRC, 280E) and Funeral Services (case management, aftercare) probes are dedicated to their industries. Additional industries can be added either with a dedicated probe set or by reusing generalized probes.

Design Decisions