The six phases and the gates
An engagement moves through six phases. Each produces something concrete and closes with a gate — checks that run on the server and have to pass before the phase advances. A phase doesn’t move on because someone clicked “next”.
The phases
Section titled “The phases”| # | Phase | What it produces |
|---|---|---|
| 0 | Platform setup | The engagement configured — AI quality thresholds, the standards library, deliverable templates, the team and who can do what. Done before client work starts. |
| 1 | Client discovery | The problem framed, an artifact-request checklist sent, material in, candidates extracted and reviewed, the capability and process models taking shape. This is where the governed loop runs hardest. |
| 2 | Gap & readiness assessment | The current state assessed across six dimensions — capability coverage, process maturity, data quality, team agility, AI readiness, and alignment to the client’s chosen framework — plus a readiness score, a migration-complexity read, and a process delta. |
| 3 | Target-state design | For every gap, a proposed resolution and a traced closure chain. The team works current and target states side by side on one canvas, drafts the target architecture, and records the client’s commitment to each change. |
| 4 | Implementation handover | The design turned into deliverables an implementation team can act on — configuration specs, an implementation roadmap aligned to the client’s delivery framework, and one-way exports to EA tools (ArchiMate 3, LeanIX, Ardoq, Sparx). |
| 5 | Governance & closure | After go-live: the design validated against what was actually built, dual sign-off by both sides, anything worth keeping promoted to the standards library, and the record sealed. |
Each phase has its own guide page under Running an engagement.
The gate that defines the product
Section titled “The gate that defines the product”The most important gate is on critical gaps. A gap classified as critical can’t be marked resolved until there is a complete, traced line behind it:
gap → recommendation → target process → data objects → application → capability
If any link is missing, the gap stays open and the phase doesn’t close. You can’t declare a transformation done on the strength of a slide.
Closure
Section titled “Closure”Closing an engagement takes a dual sign-off — the client’s EA lead and the client’s executive sponsor both confirm, and eavantage checks each person’s role before accepting it. On closure, deliverables and templates are locked and the audit trail is sealed. Throughout the engagement, an on-demand graph integrity check is available — it flags orphaned, duplicated, or mis-nested elements so the model can be confirmed internally consistent before sign-off.
Two kinds of engagement
Section titled “Two kinds of engagement”eavantage supports two scenarios as first-class:
- Migration — the client is moving off an existing tool or platform.
- Greenfield — a fresh implementation, built up from discovery.
Either way, the roadmap aligns to how the client delivers — SAFe, Scrum, Kanban, LeSS, or their own model.