Operating guides

Run your studio

Use six connected guides to define a recurring design service, prepare clients, manage delivery and keep capacity aligned with billing.

Service design and pricing

Define a service you can deliver repeatedly

Set scope, active-request limits and pricing assumptions for a recurring design service before translating the offer into software.

Client onboarding and portals

Make clients ready for productive work

Separate payment, access and brief readiness so a new design-subscription client knows how work begins and who makes decisions.

Requests and delivery

Turn a request queue into a delivery system

Define readiness, active work, blocked states and completion so recurring design requests move through a queue without hidden commitments.

Feedback and approvals

Get a clear decision on the correct version

Set up consolidated feedback, revision boundaries and explicit approval so requests finish with a traceable decision and usable delivery files.

Capacity and profitability

Plan capacity before promising more work

Separate available delivery effort, skill bottlenecks and contribution assumptions when judging whether a recurring design offer is sustainable.

Billing and retention

Keep billing and delivery in agreement

Define payment failures, pauses, cancellation and restart rules so commercial changes do not create surprise delivery or access decisions.

Use these guides to make a decision your studio can repeat. Each covers a different part of recurring design delivery, but a change in one part usually affects another. A faster turnaround promise, for example, needs a capacity decision before it needs a new board status.

Define the service and start work

Service design and pricing helps you specify accepted work, active-request limits and commercial assumptions. Start there if clients interpret the same subscription differently.

Client onboarding and portals turns a paid account into a ready request. For an ordered rehearsal, follow payment to the first useful brief. Use it when missing assets or unclear authority delay the first delivery.

Deliver work and reach a decision

Requests and delivery defines queue ownership, blocked work and completion. The focused request queue article gives a daily triage routine.

Feedback and approvals separates comments from an authorised decision. Use it when a request cycles through revisions without anyone agreeing what would make it complete.

Protect capacity and the client relationship

Capacity and profitability asks what your available people can support after revision work and operating time. Its worksheet keeps assumptions visible rather than forecasting a universal client limit.

Billing and retention defines what a payment failure, pause or cancellation changes in delivery. Work through it before automating access restrictions.

Put a policy to work

Choose one guide, write the resulting rule in a worksheet and review it against a real request without exposing client data. Evaluate software only if a capability gap remains. The stack guide connects those gaps to systems and responsibilities.