How Verttical works, from the diagnostic to day 90.

What is Verttical's diagnostic, and what does your company receive?

A 60-minute session at no cost that works out what a process costs you today. Then the Process Cost Sheet, in writing.

The session brings together the process owner and the person from Verttical who would lead the cycle technically. Within 3 business days, your company receives the cost sheet, which is yours whether or not you work with Verttical. If you come with an initiative rather than a process—a stalled AI pilot, a system another vendor did not finish—the diagnostic starts from the process that initiative was meant to improve.

Before

We reply to your request within 1 business day with proposed times, six optional questions to prepare the session and, if you need one, a mutual NDA.

Channel

Video call.

Session

60 minutes, following the agenda below.

After

The Process Cost Sheet, in writing, within 3 business days.

Optional

A 30-minute walkthrough of the cost sheet. If it recommends a cycle, that is where the statement of work (SOW) is presented: objective, named people, possible kickoff date, price, and guarantees.

Recording

Not recorded or transcribed with automated tools unless every attendee expressly consents.

Who attends

The process owner: the manager or director of the area that bears that cost

Required. If they cannot attend, the session is rescheduled.

Whoever runs the process today

Recommended: they know the exceptions and the side spreadsheet, which is where cost usually hides.

Someone from IT

Optional, if the process touches systems. At most four people from your company attend.

From Verttical, the person who would be the technical lead of your cycle

Always.

It is at no cost under four conditions: the process owner attends, the session covers one process, the request comes from your company email, and the process exists today. If you want to diagnose another process, another session is scheduled, also at no cost.

Session agenda

0 to 10

Context: what you want to move, and why now.

10 to 35

The process as it really runs, not as it is documented: steps, people, systems, and exceptions.

35 to 50

The figures: volume, time per run, rework, hourly cost of each role, and cost of delay.

50 to 60

If a cycle fits, what would need to be verified, and what the next step is.

Six questions to prepare the session

They are optional: if you do not answer them beforehand, the session covers them.

1. Where does the process start, and where does it end?
2. How many times does it run each month?
3. How many people touch it, and how much time does each one spend per run?
4. Which part has to be redone or corrected?
5. What is the fully loaded hourly cost of each role involved? By role and in aggregate, never as individual salaries.
6. What does it cost the next step when this process is delayed?

The diagnostic asks for no personal data: only aggregate figures and the hourly cost of each role. Without an NDA, it works with aggregate figures only.

When do the 8 weeks of a Verttical cycle start counting?

From the kickoff session, the first day of week 1. Before that, Verttical runs a week 0 of setup, off the clock.

The three kickoff conditions

The kickoff date is set in writing once three conditions are met.

1. The SOW is signed, together with the data processing agreement if the cycle touches personal data.
2. Your company's executive sponsor and product owner are named.
3. The access that week 1 needs has been granted.

The Cycle Plan sets the delivery date in writing: the last business day of week 8. These are 8 calendar weeks, and the baseline is measured in week 2. Holidays in Colombia and in your country are accounted for when the scope is sized, so they do not move the date.

Verttical only signs kickoffs it can meet with the people it names. If nobody is available today, the kickoff date is later; the delivery date is still 8 weeks after kickoff.

If your company runs late

If an answer, an access grant, or an approval runs past its deadline—1 business day for questions, the date in the plan for everything else—it goes into that week's report with its effect. If it touches the critical path, that same review chooses one of three responses: move the date by as many business days as the delay lasted, swap scope, or keep everything as is and have Verttical absorb the risk.

Neither side can claim in week 8 anything that is not in a weekly report.

If 15 business days pass after signing without the conditions being met, a new kickoff date is set and the upfront payment stays credited.

What happens in each week of a Verttical cycle?

In a Verttical cycle, every week leaves a deliverable you review working and a decision of yours that goes into the report.

1. Week 0 · Setup

   Off the clock

   Objective

   Make week 1 a week of work, not paperwork.

   What Verttical does

   Verttical sends the list of minimum access, by person and environment; creates the repository in your company's account, or asks for it to be created, with its initial structure; and proposes the baseline measurement plan—which data, from which source, over which period—and the day and time of the weekly review. It finishes its part within 5 business days of signing.

   What your company does

   Your company names the executive sponsor, the product owner, and the IT lead; grants access; authorizes the data sources for the baseline; and signs the data processing agreement if personal data is involved.

   What you receive

   Kickoff Record: roles named, kickoff conditions met, date of the kickoff session, and review calendar. Access Log: person, system, role, who granted it, date, expiry, and whether it has MFA. The repository, created with its initial README.

   What you decide

   That each access is the minimum and each role has real authority. And the kickoff date.

2. 8 weeks · 8 reports

   Week 1 · Cycle Plan

   Decision point

   Objective

   Turn the outline in the cost sheet into a closed scope that fits in 8 weeks with the named team.

   What Verttical does

   Verttical maps the process with the people who run it; writes verifiable acceptance criteria; sizes the must-have scope; marks each integration as verified or assumed; agrees with you on the technology—by default, the one your IT team already runs—and on whether data migration is in or out; and leaves the system skeleton deploying on its own to the test environment.

   What your company does

   Your company takes part in the mapping sessions and reviews the plan.

   What you receive

   The signed Cycle Plan. The skeleton deployed to testing: the first automated deployment, even if it does nothing useful yet.

   What you decide

   Sign the plan, which freezes the must-have scope, or stop. If you stop, you keep the plan and the cost sheet and pay only the upfront payment.

3. Week 2 · Baseline

   Measurement

   Objective

   Measure the real cost of the process and test the riskiest technical path.

   What Verttical does

   Verttical completes the measurement with your company's data (system logs, reports, or a sample of runs), tests the highest-risk integration against the real system or a copy, and grows the skeleton.

   What you receive

   Baseline Report: method, sources, period, volume, time per run, rework, hourly cost of each role in aggregate, cost per run and per month, and assumptions. And the integration test result: it worked, it did not, or what the alternative is.

   What you decide

   Whether you approve the baseline as the figure the result will be measured against. If the integration failed, which alternative is taken; if it affects the must-have scope, it goes through a change request.

4. Week 3 · First flow

   Objective

   The main path working end to end in testing, with simple cases.

   What you receive

   A version deployed to testing, a demo with test data, automated tests of the main path, and a changelog.

   What you decide

   Whether the flow reflects how your team works. Your comments go into the plan if they are within scope; if not, they go in as a change request.

5. Week 4 · Midpoint

   Decision point · Payment milestone

   Objective

   Demonstrate the first complete release with representative data, anonymized if it is personal, and project how week 8 will be reached.

   What you receive

   The demo and the Midpoint Report: must-have items accepted, in progress, and pending; the risks; and a written projection stating whether 100% of the must-have scope reaches week 8, in green, yellow, or red. If it is red, it includes a recovery plan.

   What you decide

   Continue, adjust by swapping scope, or stop.

6. Week 5 · Exceptions

   Objective

   Cover the exceptions and business rules documented in the plan. Exceptions are part of done, not a phase two.

   What you receive

   The test version and the Exception Map: every known exception with its path, which can be automated, manual with an alert, or out of scope in writing.

   What you decide

   That no known exception is left without a path.

7. Week 6 · Release candidate

   Scope frozen

   Objective

   Every integration in scope working against real systems, role permissions in place, and the migration rehearsed, if it is in scope.

   What you receive

   The release candidate in staging. The security check: no dependency with known high or critical vulnerabilities according to the pipeline scanner, no secrets in the repository, role permissions tested, a log of sensitive actions, and personal data only where the plan allows it. If there is a migration, the reconciliation report from the rehearsal. If there is AI, the evaluation set result against the plan's threshold.

   What you decide

   Approve the release candidate for acceptance. From here on only fixes go in; anything new moves to the next cycle.

8. Week 7 · Acceptance

   Payment milestone

   Objective

   Your team verifies every acceptance criterion with its own cases.

   What Verttical does

   Verttical guides the testing, fixes defects, trains the key users, and prepares the go-live and the rollback.

   What your company does

   Your company names the testers and runs the test.

   What you receive

   The Acceptance Matrix (criterion, case, who verified it, date, result, and evidence), the defect list with severity, the go-live and rollback plan, and the user guide.

   What you decide

   Acceptance, criterion by criterion, and whether it goes to production.

9. Week 8 · Production and delivery

   Decision point · Payment milestone

   Objective

   The must-have scope working in production, with real users.

   What you receive

   The system in production, with the release tagged in the repository; the post-deployment check; the Delivery Sign-off; the Documentation Package; and the handover session with the Handover Test.

   What you decide

   Sign off the delivery and choose what comes next: another cycle, a handover to your team, or the warranty alone.

10. Day 30 · Results

    Measurement

    Objective

    Repeat the week-2 measurement with the same method.

    What you receive

    Results Report: the difference in hours and dollars, the months it takes to recover the price of the cycle with the measured savings, and the external factors and limitations. It is delivered even if it does not favor Verttical. If the process runs once a month, the measurement is taken after three runs, within 90 days at most. It is included in the price of the cycle.

    What you decide

    Whether there is another cycle, or it closes.

11. Day 90 · End of correction

    Objective

    The correction warranty ends, with the log of the defects addressed.

Where you can continue or stop

When an item is done

Applies to every item, every week.

1. It meets its acceptance criteria and was demonstrated in the test environment.
2. It was merged into the main branch of your company's repository through a pull request, with the automated tests passing.
3. Whoever integrates the change reviewed line by line everything the AI generated and answers for it as if they had written it.
4. There are no secrets in the code: the pipeline scans for them automatically.
5. Every new dependency went into the inventory, with its license.
6. The documentation the change touches is up to date: README, architecture, and operations manual.
7. The system still deploys from scratch with the README, with the pipeline passing.
8. If it handles personal data, testing uses synthetic or anonymized data.
9. If it is an AI component: it was evaluated against the evaluation set and the plan's threshold, it has a fallback path for when the model fails or is unsure, and its cost per call was recorded.

How does Verttical review progress with you every week?

A joint review on the same day every week: Verttical shows what was built, working, and you decide. Everything goes into a 17-field report.

Day

The same every week, set in week 0. If it falls on a holiday in either country, it moves to the next business day the two countries share.

Length

45 minutes; 60 at the decision points, weeks 1, 4, and 8.

Attendees

Always your product owner and Verttical's technical lead. The executive sponsor in weeks 1, 4, and 8. Whoever built what is being shown, if needed.

Before

Verttical sends the report at least 1 business day ahead.

Agenda

A demo of what was built, working in the test environment, no slides: 15 minutes. Status against the plan: 10. Risks, blockers, and decisions pending on your side, with dates: 10. Decision of the week: 5. Agreements and owners: 5.

After

The same report, completed with the decisions, goes out the same business day. It is stored in your repository, under docs/reports/, or in the shared folder you choose. It never lives only in an email.

Approval

Your product owner approves it.

If it does not happen

It is rescheduled within the next 2 business days. If that is not possible, the report is sent anyway and marked “not held.” Two reviews in a row that do not happen escalate to level 2.

What is in the Cycle Plan your company signs?

What Verttical delivers, how it is accepted, what is left out, and on what date. Signed in week 1, yours even if you stop.

If the initiative does not fit in one cycle, the first cycle's plan includes a Cycle Map: the following cycles, each with its objective and its own delivery to production, plus their sequence and dependencies. It is updated in week 8 and does not oblige you to buy any of them.

There is no promise that the same people will be on the next cycle. The promise is that you know who will be there before you sign.

What happens if the scope changes mid-cycle?

In a Verttical cycle, every change is decided in writing, with its effect on date, price, and guarantee; you choose the response.

When scope freezes

End of week 1

When the plan is signed, the must-have scope freezes.

Weeks 2 to 5

Scope only changes through a change request.

From week 6

Full freeze: only defect fixes go in, and anything new moves to the next cycle. Acceptance testing needs a target that holds still.

Defect, change, or risk

What Verttical verified is Verttical's risk. What you reported and nobody could verify is shared, in writing.

The change request

1. Number, date, and who requests it
2. Description and reason
3. Plan items affected
4. Verttical's estimate
5. Effect on date, price, and guarantee, for each possible response
6. Response chosen
7. Approvals: the product owner always, and the executive sponsor if the date or the price changes
8. Status

Verttical delivers the impact analysis within 2 business days or at the next weekly review, whichever comes first. Every request goes into the report.

The three responses

Swap

The new item replaces must-have items of equal or greater size. Verttical estimates the size and you accept it. Date and price do not change, and the guarantee holds over the new list.

Next cycle

The item moves to the Cycle Map. Date, price, and guarantee do not change.

Written extension

The cycle gets longer in weeks or the price goes up, with a signed change order. The guarantee moves to the new date and scope only if the change order is signed.

If the change is not compatible with the cycle's objective, it is rejected, and the rejection is recorded.

A change that did not go through a request is not in the scope or the guarantee, even if it was discussed in a meeting. That is what the report is for.

What does Verttical guarantee in writing, and on what conditions?

Verttical guarantees by contract: delivery of the agreed scope in week 8, exit in any week, and correction for 90 days.

What delivered means

The cycle is delivered when four conditions are met at the same time.

1. Every must-have item in the signed plan, including approved swaps, meets its acceptance criteria, verified by your company in the week-7 Acceptance Matrix.
2. The release is deployed to your company's production environment, and real users are using it.
3. The code is on the main branch of your repository, with the release tagged, and deploys from scratch by following the README.
4. The Documentation Package is in the repository.

No blocking or major defect against a must-have criterion can remain open. Minor ones are logged and fall under the correction warranty.

When production depends on a third party or on your company

Your company's change window

What is in staging, with the Acceptance Matrix signed and the deployment rehearsed, counts as delivered. The move to production happens in your first window, with Verttical present and at no cost.

App stores

The accepted version in the store's internal testing channel, submitted for review, counts as delivered. Approval by Apple or Google does not depend on Verttical.

Regulatory or third-party approvals

They fall outside the guarantee and are listed as assumptions in the plan.

What your company commits to

The guarantees rest on these eight obligations. Each breach goes into that week's report, with its effect.

1. Name the executive sponsor and the product owner, with real authority, in week 0.
2. Grant the access in the log on the dates in the plan.
3. Answer questions within 1 business day.
4. Have the product owner attend every weekly review, and the executive sponsor the decision points.
5. Sign or reject the plan in week 1 and the baseline in week 2.
6. Run the acceptance test in week 7 with named people.
7. Handle every change as a change request.
8. Pay the milestones on the agreed terms.

How it is decided whether a guarantee applies

It is decided at the week-8 review, and the evidence is the reports, not anyone's memory. If every must-have item is accepted, the cycle is delivered. If one is missing and no recorded breach on your side affected it, the delivery guarantee applies and you choose the option in that same review. A disagreement escalates to level 3.

How is a Verttical cycle paid for?

A Verttical cycle has a fixed price for 9 weeks, calculated on the named team, and is paid in four milestones tied to approved reports.

The price covers 9 weeks—week 0 for setup and the 8 weeks of the cycle—and does not depend on scope: it depends on the team and the weeks, and scope is sized to the team in week 1. That is why it can be fixed and the guarantee can be met.

• From the end of week 1, you never pay ahead of the work done. That is why an exit is always settled with a payment from you for the difference, never with a refund.
• Week 0 is billed as one week, however long it takes.
• For an exit, the value of the work done is: weeks completed ÷ 9 × price.
• If your accounts payable team prefers, the weeks with an approved report are invoiced monthly and 20% is withheld until the Delivery Sign-off.
• In US dollars. The figure is in the SOW, which is presented after the diagnostic.
• Each milestone is invoiced when its report is approved. If the report comes in red, that same review decides the recovery plan or the exit; if you exit, you pay only for the work done.

If you decide to exit

You can terminate the SOW at the end of any week with written notice, at the review or by formal email. You pay for the weeks worked, including the week in progress, minus what you already paid, and no penalty. Within 5 business days you receive the exit package: the repository, which is already yours; up-to-date documentation; access revoked; and the return and deletion of data, with its certificate.

Verttical can only terminate the SOW in two cases, with 10 business days' notice and the same exit package: for non-payment, 30 days after the late-payment notice, or because your company failed its obligations in 3 consecutive reports, after escalation to level 3.

There is no minimum commitment between one cycle and the next.

What does Verttical not guarantee, and why?

Verttical does not guarantee savings: it measures them before and after, and gives you the number even if it does not favor Verttical.

Who decides what in a Verttical cycle, and how are issues escalated?

Your company names an executive sponsor and a product owner; Verttical, a technical lead. Every decision has an owner, a channel, and a written deadline.

The executive sponsor and the product owner can be the same person if they can answer within 1 business day.

Who works on your cycle

The SOW names every Verttical person and their role, and nothing is assigned after signing. If a named person changes, Verttical gives written notice at least 5 business days ahead, barring force majeure; the replacement comes with a documented handover, at no cost and with no effect on the date or the guarantee, and you can reject it and exit with no penalty. Between one cycle and the next, the new SOW names the people again.

Channels

Outside business hours, questions are answered the next business day. There is no on-call.

Escalation

Who owns what Verttical builds, and from when?

Everything Verttical creates for your company in a cycle is yours from the moment it is created, not from payment.

What documentation does Verttical deliver, and how is it tested?

A 13-piece package in your repository. In week 8, your team deploys the system from scratch with it, without Verttical's help.

The Documentation Package

1. README: how to build, configure, test, and deploy from scratch.
2. Architecture: one to three pages, with a diagram.
3. Technical decision log: what was decided, why, and what was ruled out.
4. The data model and its dictionary.
5. Integrations: systems, interface contracts, and where the credentials are kept, never the credentials themselves.
6. Operations manual: monitoring, alerts, common incidents and how to resolve them, backup, and restore.
7. The user guide for each role.
8. The signed Acceptance Matrix.
9. The dependency inventory with its licenses.
10. The final Access Log, with what was revoked.
11. The Baseline Report and, when it arrives, the Results Report.
12. If there is AI: the evaluation set, the results, the threshold, the fallback path, the cost per call, and how to monitor it.
13. The cycle's weekly reports.

The Handover Test

In week 8, a person from your team, or a third party you designate, deploys the system from scratch in a clean environment by following the README, without Verttical's help. If they cannot, it is a defect and falls under the warranty. Documentation gets tested, not just delivered.

Handover is a weekly practice, not a final event: the definition of done keeps the documentation current and the system deployable. In week 8 there is also a handover session with your technical team covering the architecture, operations, and open issues.

How does Verttical protect your company's data?

Under contract: if the cycle touches personal data, Verttical acts as a processor under Colombian Law 1581 of 2012, with controls your team can review.

When Verttical processes personal data your company controls—about your customers, employees, or suppliers—it does so on your company's behalf: your company is the controller and Verttical the processor. The instrument is the data processing agreement, attached to the SOW, under Colombian Law 1581 of 2012 and Decree 1074 of 2015. Colombian law applies to any processing carried out in Colombia, for US clients too; where your country or sector requires its own terms, such as a HIPAA business associate agreement or a state-law service-provider addendum, Verttical signs them only after legal review.

What the data processing agreement says

• The scope of the processing and the activities Verttical performs on your company's behalf.
• Verttical's obligations to the data subjects and to your company.
• That Verttical applies your company's policy and processes the data only for the authorized purpose, securely and confidentially.
• The sub-processors, authorized by your company.
• Incident notice, and return and deletion at closing.
• Your right to verify all of it, with the Access Log and the reports.

The controls, and where to check them

If there is an incident

Verttical notifies you of any security incident affecting your data or systems within 24 hours of detecting it. The notice says what is known, what is not known, and the measures taken. The incident is recorded in the weekly report and then written up with its cause, effect, and fix. The report to Colombia's Superintendency of Industry and Commerce that the law requires is coordinated with your company.

At closing: return and deletion

1. Your company revokes access.
2. Verttical returns whatever it holds of your company's and deletes the copies, including local clones of the repository and any data in its tools.
3. Within 10 business days, Verttical delivers a Return and Deletion Certificate stating what was deleted, where, when, and by whom.

The only exception is what the law requires to be kept, such as the contract and invoices, and that does not include your company's personal data.

How does Verttical use AI, and who is accountable for it?

AI proposes, a person from Verttical answers for it, and you approve; every step is in writing, and the model cost is in the report.

Who does what, and where it is recorded

AI

Proposes code and tests. In the product, it classifies or extracts data when the cost sheet recommends it.

Where it is recordedThe pull request. In the product, the documentation: threshold, fallback path, and cost per call.

A person from Verttical

Reviews line by line what the AI generated, integrates it, and answers for it. Decides the architecture.

Where it is recordedThe approval under their name, in your company's repository.

You

Approve the plan, the baseline, the release candidate, the acceptance, and the move to production.

Where it is recordedEach week's report.

When it is not worth using

The Process Cost Sheet recommends not using AI when the rule can be written as a rule, when volume is low, or when the data does not exist.

When an AI component is done

1. It was evaluated against a set of your company's real cases and a threshold written in the plan, and the result is reviewed in week 6.
2. It has a fallback path for when the model fails or is unsure.
3. Its cost per call is documented, and the week's usage cost appears in the report.

Your data and the models

• Your company's personal or confidential data is not sent to any AI tool or model you have not authorized in writing.
• The system's AI components use the models from your company's accounts, under the data terms your company has with its provider.
• Before data is sent to a model provider, its current terms are checked for whether it trains on that data, and the result goes into the plan.

AI in the team's work

The AI tools the team will use are listed in the plan, field 10, and your company can ban them; the scope is then sized without them. What the AI writes is reviewed line by line by the person who integrates it, who answers for it as if they had written it.

What is not guaranteed: the accuracy of a model outside the agreed evaluation set. What is guaranteed is the threshold measured on that set.

What does Verttical do after delivery?

Verttical fixes defects at no cost for 90 days and repeats the measurement at day 30. After that, operation is yours, with tested documentation.

How a defect is handled under the warranty

Changes, parts someone else modified, and failures of third parties or infrastructure fall outside the warranty.

30 days into production, Verttical repeats the week-2 measurement with the same method and gives you the Results Report, even if it does not favor Verttical. It is included in the price of the cycle.

After day 90, no support is included. Operation stays with your team, or with whoever you choose, using the documentation your team already tested in week 8. If you want Verttical to stay on, another cycle or a support agreement with named people is quoted, and you know those people before you sign.

What comes next, your choice

Another cycle

A new 8-week SOW. Its week 0 can run during weeks 7 and 8 of the current cycle, so there is no gap.

Handover to your team or a third party

Verttical supports the transition within the warranty period.

The warranty alone

The 90 days of correction, then closing.

When the relationship closes, Verttical delivers the Return and Deletion Certificate and the Access Log with everything revoked. There is no minimum commitment between cycles.

Other questions about Verttical's method