Tech audit: from diagnosis to a well-scoped engagement
You know how to analyze the tech. Learn to connect your findings to the decisions your client faces.
In 3 days, learn to understand what is really at stake behind the request, to run a diagnosis tied to those stakes, and to propose a concrete action plan. Along with, where the situation calls for it, a follow-on engagement with a clear scope.
The symptom
A sound diagnosis that leads nowhere
Behind a request for a technical audit there is usually a leader trying to secure a choice: continue with what exists, launch a rebuild, prepare for growth or rethink the organization.
You reviewed the code, identified the weak points and presented your recommendations: strengthen the tests, simplify the architecture, rework certain components.
The client thanks you. Then nothing happens.
Your findings are valid. But the leader still does not know whether to approve the proposed rebuild, whether the team can meet its ambitions, or which piece of work deserves immediate investment.
To act, what they are missing is the link between what you observed and the decisions they have to make.
The cost of inaction
What it's actually costing you
You give your diagnosis away for free.
During pre-sales, you're asked for "your quick take." You deliver 80% of the value in a 30-minute call, and the client walks away with enough to scope the mission without you.
You stay paid by the day.
You sell production days on a scope someone else decided. Your day rate plateaus because the only point of comparison is the price of the day.
You arrive once everything is already decided.
The structuring decisions were made before you got there, often poorly. You spend your engagements compensating for choices you had no part in.
You're replaceable.
A good freelance developer has plenty of competitors. A freelancer able to secure a 400k€ decision has very few.
What changes
What this course teaches you to change
Understand the request behind the request
Why is the client asking for an audit now? Which choice are they hesitating over? Which consequences are they trying to avoid? You learn to surface these questions from the framing stage onwards. They give your diagnosis a direction.
Connect your findings to the client's stakes
A technical weakness takes on a different weight when it threatens a launch, slows down changes or makes the company dependent on a single person. You learn to establish and support those links, separating priority risks from improvements that can wait.
Frame recommendations that make a decision possible
What needs addressing? Why now? What are the options and their consequences? What can be left as it is? You build a presentation that helps the leader arbitrate and gives the team a direction they can understand.
Let a precisely scoped engagement emerge
The action plan defines what must be done, what the team can take on, and where support will be useful. You learn to turn that need into an engagement proposal: objective, scope, deliverables, responsibilities and success criteria.
Profile
Who it's for
Experienced developers, tech leads, tech consultants and freelance CTOs with solid development or architecture experience.
You know how to spot technical problems. You want to better understand what they mean for the client, get your recommendations heard, and propose engagements tied directly to their priorities.
The course builds on that technical experience to work on framing, decision-oriented diagnosis, presentation and offer design.
This isn't for you if
you're looking for an exhaustive code review method, a security certification, or a theoretical architecture course. Here, we work the full chain: scoping, diagnosing, prioritizing, presenting, selling the next step.
The method
The programme
Identify the decision the audit must inform
Explore the context of the request: the client's ambitions, their worries, the options they are considering and their deadlines. Identify the people to talk to and surface the questions the audit will have to answer.
The outcome: an audit request reframed around explicit stakes.
Scope the investigations that matter
Define what needs examining to answer those questions: code, architecture, delivery practices, organization, product or dependencies. Set the scope, the access required, the interviews, the deliverables and the limits of the analysis.
The outcome: an audit proportionate to the need, with a scope you can hold.
Turn observations into argued risks
Separate a finding, its possible consequences and their importance in the client context. Cross-check what you gathered, test your assumptions and state the uncertainties. Link technical weaknesses to delivery capacity, costs, deadlines and the autonomy of the company.
The outcome: a ranked diagnosis, grounded in facts.
Build and defend the recommendations
Present the options and their trade-offs. Separate what demands fast action, what can be planned, and what can be accepted as it is. Present to the leader without needless jargon, and to the team without putting it on trial.
The outcome: a summary that makes decisions possible.
Build the action plan
Translate the recommendations into 30, 60 and 90-day steps, depending on the context. Specify the priorities, the dependencies, the responsibilities and the expected results. Account for the real capacity of the team and for product commitments.
The outcome: a plan the client can use to get the work started.
Scope and propose the follow-on engagement
Identify what the client can handle alone and where your involvement brings clear value. Define your contribution: delivery, steering or supporting the team. Set the scope, the exclusions, the deliverables and the success criteria, then build the matching commercial proposal.
The outcome: a precise engagement, justified by the diagnosis and understandable to the client.
Putting it into practice
From the request to the engagement proposal
Working from a company case, you go through the whole chain: the initial request, the framing questions, the analysis of the technical material, the presentation and the engagement proposal.
You defend your recommendations in front of a leader, then you set out the follow-on work you are proposing to take on. What is at stake: making explicit the link between a technical finding, a consequence for the company, a decision and an action to carry out.
Deliverables
You leave with
Pricing
Format and pricing
3 days
€2,700 excl. VAT
The full journey: diagnosis, prioritization, presentation, action plan, positioning yourself as an auditor, building your own templates, a pre-sales simulation with objection handling, and a final pitch of your offer to the group.
The price shown is per person. For any group or in-house training, please contact us.
Frequently asked questions