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Data Readiness Assessment
Three weeks, one senior architect, a fixed fee. You find out what is actually wrong with your data, what it is costing you, and whether the initiative you are about to fund should go ahead.
A Data Readiness Assessment establishes what is actually wrong with your data and what it will take to fix — in three weeks, for a fixed fee, delivered by one senior architect rather than a team. You get a current-state architecture map, data quality and lineage findings, a plain accounting of where your definitions diverge and what that costs, a prioritized 90-day roadmap, and a straight go/no-go on whatever AI or analytics initiative prompted the call. It is a diagnosis. I do not bid on the build.
Why companies call
The call usually arrives in one of three shapes. Someone has been asked to put AI on top of the data and suspects the foundation will not hold. Two departments brought the same number to the same meeting and it was two different numbers. Or a board, a lender, or an acquirer has started asking questions that nobody can answer quickly.
Those look like three problems. They are one problem: nobody has written down what the data means or who owns it. Forty years in enterprise data, and I have not seen a version of this that a tool fixed.
Where AI fits
I use AI to build. I do not use it to decide.
The platform work at Dobler Data Solutions is built and operated by proprietary agents, supervised by people who own the result. That is what makes weeks instead of months possible, and I would rather tell you plainly than have you wonder.
What it will not do is decide. It cannot tell you whether two departments mean the same thing by "revenue", or whether the foundation under a build will hold long enough to be worth pouring. Those are still judgment calls. So the assessment ends with a straight recommendation on whatever prompted it: proceed, proceed once these things are fixed, or not yet. If you are ready, I will say that too.
What you get
Five deliverables, written down
- A current-state architecture map. What systems you have, what actually flows between them, and where it breaks.
- Data quality and lineage findings. Where numbers come from, where they are transformed, and where the trail goes cold.
- Where your definitions diverge — and what it costs. The specific metrics that mean different things in different rooms, and the decisions being made on them.
- A prioritized 90-day roadmap. Sequenced by what unblocks the most, not by what is easiest to sell you.
- A go/no-go on the initiative that prompted the call. In writing, with the reasoning, so you can hand it to a board or a lender.
How it runs
Three weeks from kickoff to readout. The pace is usually set by how quickly access and interviews can be arranged on your side — the people who actually know where things live are the same people with full calendars. The analysis itself is fifty to sixty hours of senior work.
You get one architect. Not a partner who sells and a team of juniors who deliver. The person in the kickoff is the person writing the findings, which is the only arrangement under which the findings are worth anything.
Fixed fee, not hourly
The fee is agreed in writing before anything starts, after a short call to establish what is actually in scope — how many systems, how far back the data has to be traced, who needs to be interviewed. It does not move if the work takes longer than I estimated. That risk is mine, which is the point: an hourly arrangement puts it on you, and quietly rewards me for taking longer.
I price the assessment against the decision it informs, not against the hours it takes. The engagements worth doing are the ones where the decision underneath is large enough that getting it wrong is the expensive outcome.
I do not bid on the build
The assessment is priced as standalone work, and I do not tender for what it recommends. The roadmap is written so that your own team, or any vendor you choose, can pick it up and run it.
The obvious conflict, stated up front: I also co-founded Dobler Data Solutions, which builds Dobler Insights — analytics-as-a-service on the Microsoft Azure stack. So I do have a product in this market, and you should know that before you hire me to look at yours.
Here is how that is handled. The assessment is a separate business — Dobler Consulting, Inc., not Dobler Data Solutions — and it tells you what capability you need, not who should provide it. I do not bid on the implementation during the engagement. If you later conclude that Dobler Insights fits, that is a separate decision on a separate day, and I will tell you to get two other quotes before you make it.
If an assessment can only conclude “hire me,” it is not an assessment. It is a sales call with a deliverable.
Who it is for — and who it is not
It is built for mid-market companies: too large to run on spreadsheets, too small to carry a dedicated BI team, and facing a decision expensive enough that guessing is not acceptable.
It is not for you if the data questions can still be answered by one person who knows where everything lives. That is a good position to be in, and paying me to confirm it would be a waste of your money. I will tell you on the call.
Start with a conversation
Thirty minutes, no charge. You describe the decision in front of you and I will tell you whether an assessment is the right instrument — or whether something smaller would do. Email me at peter@doblersolutions.com and it comes straight to me.
Frequently asked questions
What is a data readiness assessment?
A bounded engagement that establishes the current condition of your data architecture and what it would take to fix it. It produces a current-state architecture map, data quality and lineage findings, an account of where metric definitions diverge across departments and what that costs, a prioritized 90-day roadmap, and a go/no-go recommendation on whatever AI or analytics initiative prompted it. It is a diagnosis, not an implementation.
How long does it take?
Three weeks from kickoff to the final readout, delivered by one senior architect rather than a team. The pace is usually set by how quickly access and interviews can be arranged; the analysis itself is roughly fifty to sixty hours of senior work.
What does it cost?
A fixed fee, agreed in writing before the work starts, after a short call to establish what is in scope — how many systems, how far back the data has to be traced, who needs to be interviewed. It does not change if the work takes longer than estimated; that risk sits with me rather than with you. The assessment is priced against the decision it informs rather than against the hours it takes.
Do I have to hire you for the implementation afterwards?
No. The assessment is priced as standalone work, and I do not tender for what it recommends. The roadmap is written so that your own team, or any vendor you choose, can pick it up and run it. The obvious conflict, stated up front: I also co-founded Dobler Data Solutions, which builds Dobler Insights, so I do have a product in this market. The assessment is a separate business — Dobler Consulting, Inc. — and it tells you what capability you need, not who should provide it. If you later conclude that Dobler Insights fits, that is a separate decision on a separate day, and I will tell you to get two other quotes first.
Is my company too small for this?
It is built for mid-market companies — typically too large to run the business on spreadsheets and too small to carry a dedicated BI team. If the data questions can still be answered by one person who knows where everything lives, it is too early, and I will say so.