Scope reset: re-pricing without breaking the relationship
Engagements that drift do not need to die. A structured scope reset lets both sides pause, re-price, and resume. Without anyone losing face.
Three signals together. Not any one alone: two consecutive missed gates, scope expansion >25% from kickoff, and one or both sides delaying communication.
The reset is called by the liaison in writing. Calling it from inside one side reads as positioning; calling it from the witness role reads as procedure.
60 minutes, three sections: where we agreed to be, where we are, what changes. No re-litigation of past decisions in the first two sections.
Output is a re-priced statement of work with new gates, new acceptance criteria, and an explicit cancellation option exercisable by either side within five business days.
If both sides sign the re-priced SOW within the five-day window, the engagement restarts with the original badge intact.
If either side exercises the cancellation option, the liaison runs an exit checklist: code handoff, credential rotation, final invoice reconciliation, and a published mark change if the cause was a material rubric event.
- 01A reset is called by the witness, not by either party.
- 02The reset produces a re-priced SOW with an explicit five-day exit window.
- 03Graceful exit is a procedure, not a negotiation under pressure.
Related reading
- The first 90 days: a kickoff that does not unravel
Most offshore engagements are won or lost in the first three weeks. A repeatable kickoff that sets cadence, acceptance, and escalation before anyone writes production code.
- Security incident: the first 48 hours
What a vetted agency does in the first 48 hours of a confirmed or suspected security incident. The window where the mark is most at risk. And most defensible.
- Buyer's guides
Longer references on scoping, contracting, and running offshore work.
- The rubric
The twelve gates and score bands every vetted agency is measured against.
- Field notes by topic
Loss patterns, buyer psychology, and agency operations, grouped.
- Vetted agency directory
See which agencies have passed the audit.