FIXED-SCOPE WORK
THAT ENDS IN
A DECISION.

It is a 20-minute conversation, not a pitch. You describe the decision or problem in front of you; Ricardo asks who owns it, what has already been tried and what would count as progress. By the end you will know one of three things: that a fixed-scope engagement makes sense and which one, that a single Intelligence Working Session is the better first step, or that the problem is better handled internally or by someone else. If it is a fit, you receive a short written scope with the fee, dates and deliverables. Nothing starts until you approve it, and you will not be added to a sales sequence if you decide not to go ahead.

Every engagement is a fixed fee agreed in writing before work starts: no hourly billing, no open-ended retainer and no automatic renewal. The fee depends on the scope you confirm, such as the number of participants, use cases or sessions, and whether the work is remote or on site. Because those variables change the price materially, it is confirmed after the first call rather than published as a number that may not apply to you. Larger engagements can be paid in installments tied to milestones. If budget is a constraint, say so early: the Intelligence Working Session exists so you can start small and decide with evidence.

Start from the decision you need to make, not the service name. If leadership needs to agree where AI should and should not be used, and who owns it, Executive AI Strategy and Activation fits. If AI is already in use and you need to show which safeguards actually exist, the AI Exposure and Readiness Assessment fits. If you teach or train others, such as a faculty, a professional body or an internal academy, the Institutional AI Faculty Pilot fits. If an audience needs to understand the stakes before anything else, a talk or executive briefing fits. If none of these is obvious yet, begin with one Intelligence Working Session to frame a single problem; it ends with a recommended next step or a clear decision not to proceed.

Engagements are designed around busy leadership teams. Executive AI Strategy and Activation runs over six weeks with a discovery call, one live workshop for up to 12 participants and a follow-up decision session; the work in between is ours. The Exposure and Readiness Assessment relies on a few stakeholder interviews and on documents you already have, such as policies, logs and vendor terms. The Faculty Pilot runs over twelve weeks with four live sessions and two office-hour clinics for up to 12 faculty or facilitators. The written scope lists exactly who needs to be involved and when, so you can plan around it before you commit.

No. Many organizations come to us because AI use is scattered, informal or invisible to leadership. The work starts from your decisions, workflows and information, not from a tool. Where tools are involved, we work with platforms you already license or approve, and explain the choices in plain language. Technical colleagues are welcome in the room, but the outputs are written for the people who own the decision.

Something your team can use without us. Depending on the engagement, that is a concise action brief with named owners, checkpoints and validation metrics; a findings register showing, for each AI use case, what is claimed, what the evidence shows and what to fix first; or a reusable teaching module with an evaluation rubric and a facilitator guide. Every engagement closes with a handover. If a deliverable would not change a decision or a way of working, it does not belong in the scope.

No. It is a bounded, evidence-based review of up to three AI use cases you declare. We compare the safeguards your organization reports with the evidence you provide, and record the gaps in a findings register with a confidence level and a recommended owner for each. It is not a certification, an audit opinion, legal advice or security testing, and it should not be presented as one. If you need any of those, the assessment helps you frame the question for the right specialist.

We ask only for the information the scope needs, and data handling is agreed in writing before work starts: whether a non-disclosure agreement is required, which systems and AI tools may be used, and how material is returned or deleted at the end. Confidential material is not placed in AI tools you have not approved. Client names, work and results are never published without permission, which is why the work shown on this site is anonymized.

Ricardo J. Rodríguez De Santiago leads every engagement personally, from the first call to the handover. Bytes and Mortar is an independent practice: you will not meet a senior person in the sales conversation and a junior team afterwards. When a project genuinely needs another specialist, such as legal, security or data-engineering expertise, the scope says so, names the role, and that person is brought in only with your agreement.

Most work is delivered remotely, with on-site workshops or talks where they add value. We work in English, Spanish and French, from Paris and San Juan, with organizations across the Americas and Europe. Contracts and invoices can be issued in US dollars or euros.

It ends. Every engagement is fixed-term with no automatic renewal, and the deliverables are designed so your team can continue on its own. If you later want help with a next step, such as a second use case, a wider rollout or a periodic review, it is scoped and agreed separately on the same fixed-fee terms.

When you need software built at scale, a managed IT service, a formal audit or certification, or someone to roll out a tool that has already been chosen regardless of fit. We are also not the right partner if the goal is a presentation rather than a decision. It is better to say that on the first call than to sell an engagement that will not change anything.