--- title: "How the Service Works | Four Steps | Azendo" description: "From first brief to a delivery team at full pace takes four to six weeks. Four steps, then the service that runs around it every month afterwards." url: "https://azendo.co/how-it-works/" --- # How the delivery service works, from brief to sprint. You approve every step before it happens. Nothing starts until scope and capacity are agreed in writing. [Start a conversation](https://azendo.co/how-it-works/#start) [See the four steps](https://azendo.co/how-it-works/#four-steps) Full capacity Specialists work on one project — yours — not split across accounts Years, not sprints Built for long-term product work where context compounds One service delivery manager Owns quality, cadence and reporting across every specialist assigned No local overhead No entity in Thailand, no employment obligations, no equipment to ship ## What a service delivery manager is accountable for. Long-term offshore delivery works when both sides know exactly what they own. We draw that line in one place and keep it there: you direct the product, we run the team and answer for what it delivers. Nothing in between is left to assumption, which is why partners stay with us for years rather than months. Your side You manage the projects You stay the product owner. Nothing about direction, architecture or priority moves offshore. Roadmap, priorities and scopeBacklog and sprint planning in your toolsArchitecture and technical decisionsCode review and acceptanceRelease calendar The line Service agreement Priorities flow one way. Delivered work flows back. Our side We manage the team and the delivery Everything it takes to put capable specialists on your project and keep them there, year after year. Team assembly and ramp-up on your stackTraining, mentoring and development plansDelivery oversight, quality and reportingEmployment administration, payroll, benefitsEquipment, office, security and continuity Your management time should go into the product, not into the mechanics of keeping an offshore team functioning. That part is ours. ## Four steps to an assigned delivery team. First conversation to first sprint is typically four to six weeks. Most of that time goes into building the right team, not into paperwork. The [offshore engagement mistakes](https://azendo.co/biggest-mistakes-companies-make-when-offshore-staff/) this process is designed to avoid are set out separately. 01 Week 1 Share the scope A short brief is enough. We turn it into a delivery plan and a monthly capacity you approve. **You get:** a scope note and a capacity proposal in hours 02 Weeks 2–5 We compose the team We select and assign the specialists, and we manage them once the team is running. **You get:** profiles, an intro call, a named service delivery manager 03 Weeks 4–6 Delivery starts Your tools, your sprint rhythm, an Azendo service delivery manager answering for output. **You get:** committed capacity, working in your sprints 04 Ongoing Capacity moves with you Raise or lower committed hours at the next monthly cycle. **You get:** capacity adjusted at the next monthly cycle The service delivery manager is the part people ask about most. One person runs planning, quality and reporting on our side and answers for the whole team, so you talk to one contact rather than six. How that translates into a monthly figure is set out on the pricing page, which walks through [how the monthly fee is built](https://azendo.co/pricing/). Two things happen before step one that are worth knowing. We will tell you on the first call if we think the engagement is wrong for us, which happens more often than you might expect. And we do not quote until we have seen enough of the roadmap to size it honestly. After step four, the service continues rather than ending. Monthly reporting, quarterly reviews with the service delivery manager, and capacity adjusted as the roadmap changes. There is no handover milestone, because the team stays. If you would rather test the model against your own roadmap first, [talk to a service delivery manager](https://azendo.co/get-in-touch/). Step four is where most offshore engagements end and ours begins. Everything below this point is what we keep doing for the next three years. [What we keep doing ↓](https://azendo.co/how-it-works/#service-layer) ## Your project sits on three layers you never have to build. Capacity on its own is just hours. What turns it into a service is everything underneath it. Read the diagram from the top: your project is the only layer you operate. Layer 0 · yours Your product and your priorities Roadmap, backlog, acceptance, releases. You decide what gets built and in what order — the same way you would with any team delivering your product. Layer 1 · ours Delivery management A service delivery manager sits between you and the team, owns the output, and is accountable when something slips. Service delivery manager on every teamSprint participation in your toolsQuality and code standardsCapacity and output reportingA named escalation pathQuarterly delivery review with you Layer 2 · ours People development The reason specialists stay for years and get better at your product rather than plateauing on it. Structured ramp-up on your stackAzendo Academy training tracksIndividual development plansRecurring performance reviewsEnglish and communication coachingTechnical mentoring across disciplines Layer 3 · ours Operations and employment Our specialists are employed by Azendo in Thailand. Every obligation that comes with that is ours, not yours. Employment administrationPayroll, tax and social securityBenefits, insurance and leaveHardware, licences and supportSecure office in Chiang MaiAccess control, VPN and device policyPower and connectivity redundancyLocal compliance and contracts All three layers are included in the monthly fee. There is no separate management charge, no setup fee, no equipment invoice and no cost attached to replacing a specialist if we need to. ## What happens after the team is running. The specialists assigned to you work directly inside your systems — your repositories, your board, your chat, your stand-up — working alongside your team. Our managers do not get access to any of it. Your code, tickets and data never leave your environment, and nobody at Azendo reads them to judge how delivery is going. That deliberate lack of access is why we built the assessment model below. Instead of looking over a shoulder, we run three separate signals — and the one that carries the most weight is your own scoring of the delivery. Your environment Where the work happens The specialist is in here every day, working as one of your team. Your repositories Your board and tickets Your chat and stand-up Your review process × **No Azendo manager access.** Only the assigned specialist holds credentials. Our managers work from the signals on the right, never from inside your systems. How we assess delivery Three signals crossing the line Time tracked in our systemContinuous Every hour of committed capacity is logged against your project in Azendo's own system. It gives our managers the insight they cannot get from your tools: hours delivered against hours agreed, where capacity actually went, and early signs of overload. The specialist's weekly reportWeekly Each specialist reports to us every week: what they worked on, what moved, what is blocked and what they need in order to deliver better. It is written for their own organisation, so problems surface honestly and early. Your score and your 1:1sWeekly + bi-weekly Every week you receive a short survey to score the delivery. Every second week your service delivery manager sits down with you one to one. This is the signal we weigh heaviest — your judgement of the work, not our reading of it. Daily In your team's rhythm The specialist joins your stand-up and works in your tools. Five hours of overlap with Northern Europe means questions get answered while your day is still running. Weekly You score the delivery A short survey, one or two minutes, scoring the week's delivery per specialist. Scores are tracked over time, so a dip shows up as a trend rather than as a surprise months later. Bi-weekly 1:1 with your service delivery manager A dedicated one-to-one on quality, collaboration and anything a survey cannot capture. The same person every time, so context carries from one conversation to the next. Monthly Capacity and delivery summary Tracked hours against committed capacity, the survey trend, what shipped and what carried over. This is also where capacity for the coming month is adjusted. ### Every score ends up in a training plan Feedback only matters if something happens with it. Yours does not sit in a report. It is processed by your service delivery manager and handed to Talent Success, whose whole job is turning it into measurable improvement in the specialist's delivery. 01 You give the signal The weekly survey score, plus whatever comes up in the bi-weekly 1:1. 02 Your manager processes it Read against tracked hours and the specialist's own weekly report, then written up as findings. 03 Talent Success takes over A dedicated team owns what happens next — not the person being reviewed, and not you. 04 A plan is built Training, courses, 1:1 coaching, tests and certification, with a date to reassess. 05 You see it in the score Improvement shows up in the delivery, and in the survey. Then the loop runs again. You score the delivery. We do the work of improving it. That division is the whole service in one sentence. What a plan can contain Discipline training trackExternal course or certification1:1 coachingTechnical testsMentoring by a senior specialistCommunication and EnglishChange to the team composition [How Talent Success works →](https://azendo.co/talent-success-academy/) ## Assignment is earned, not filled. Every specialist on a partner project is part of Azendo's own team, assessed against the same standard and developed through the Academy before delivery starts. Roughly one in twenty-five who begin that process reach an assignment. Entering assessment 100% Technical evaluation 38% Live problem session 17% Communication and collaboration 9% Assigned to a project 4% Indicative figures from our own assessment process over the last two years. Then the Academy takes over Assessment tells us who is capable today. The Talent Success Academy is what keeps them growing: structured tracks per discipline, internal certification, English and client-communication coaching, and a mentor from a senior discipline lead. [Inside the Academy →](https://azendo.co/talent-success-academy/) You meet the team first Before delivery starts you see profiles and talk to the specialists and the service delivery manager. If the match is wrong, we change it — there is no fee and no argument about it. Context does not live in one head Documentation standards and shared context inside the discipline team mean the reasoning behind your codebase is not held by a single person. That is what protects the engagement over years rather than months. ## How committed monthly capacity is agreed. We only take on service agreements where specialists work at full capacity on one project, with a horizon measured in years. That rules out work we could easily sell, and it is deliberate. Part-time attention and rotating faces are the two things that make offshore delivery feel unreliable, and we would rather not compete on them. Not us Freelance or part-time capacity Attention split across clients, context rebuilt every week, no one accountable for quality but you. Not us Fixed-price project outsourcing A specification, a hand-off, a team that disperses at go-live and takes the product knowledge with it. Us A long-term service agreement Full capacity on your project, the same specialists over years, one service delivery manager accountable for the output. Month 1–3 Ramp-up The team learns your codebase, domain and standards. Output rises through the quarter; we plan for that openly rather than promising day-one velocity. Month 4–12 Full stride The team owns areas of the product, takes work with less specification, and development plans start showing up as capability you can use. Year 2+ Compounding Product knowledge sits with people who are still here. Most partners grow capacity at this point rather than replacing it. Anytime Adjust or stop Long term is our intention, not a lock-in. Capacity moves up or down on a monthly cycle, with a clear notice period in the agreement. ## How software development outsourcing works when the provider runs the team Most software development outsourcing ends at handover. A vendor delivers a scope, invoices, and the knowledge leaves with them. That works for a defined project with an end date and stops working the moment the roadmap keeps producing work. The managed alternative keeps the team and the accountability with the provider. You set priorities and review output; planning, quality gates and performance sit on our side. In practice that means one point of contact rather than six. A service delivery manager plans the sprint, holds the quality bar, reports weekly and answers when something slips. If you are still deciding between models, [staff augmentation vs managed services](https://azendo.co/blog/engagement-models/staff-augmentation-vs-managed-services/) sets out the difference in one page. If you already know you want an assigned team, [outsource software development services](https://azendo.co/services/software-development/) covers what that looks like by discipline. ## Tell us what the team needs to look like Send us a message with the disciplines and capacity you have in mind. You will hear back from a service delivery manager — not a sales desk — with what we would deliver, what it costs per month and what we would need from you to start. 1A written scope note and capacity proposal within a few days 2An honest answer if what you need is not a fit for us 3No obligation until the agreement is signed ## What partners ask before they start Who manages the specialists day to day — us or you? You set the direction: priorities, scope, technical decisions and acceptance. We manage the team: who is assigned, how they perform, how they develop, quality standards and reporting. You brief and review the work. Anything about how the team is performing or growing goes through your service delivery manager, who answers for it. Why insist on full capacity and long-term agreements? Because the value of this model comes from accumulated context. A specialist who has worked in your product for two years makes better decisions, needs less specification and catches problems earlier. Splitting attention across clients or rotating teams every few months destroys exactly that. We would rather decline a short engagement than deliver the weaker version of our own service. Do your managers need access to our systems? No. Only the specialist assigned to your project holds credentials, and they use them inside your environment alongside your team. Our managers assess delivery from three things instead: hours tracked in Azendo's own system, the specialist's weekly report to us, and your weekly survey score plus the bi-weekly 1:1 with your service delivery manager. What exactly is included in the monthly fee? All three service layers: delivery management and reporting, training and development, and the full operational side — employment administration, payroll, benefits, hardware, licences, office, security and connectivity. One fee per team against a minimum monthly capacity in hours. No management surcharge, no selection fee, no equipment invoices and no cost if we need to change who is on the team. What happens if delivery is not good enough? It shows up in your weekly score before it becomes a crisis, and your service delivery manager picks it up in the next 1:1\. From there it becomes their problem to solve. Usually the answer is mentoring, clearer work breakdown or a change in how the team is composed. If a specialist is not right for your project, we replace them at our cost and carry the ramp-up. You should never be in the position of managing someone else's performance problem. Do we need a legal entity in Thailand? No. You sign one service agreement with Azendo and receive one monthly invoice. The specialists are employed by Azendo in Thailand, so all local employment, tax and compliance obligations sit with us. You have no entity to register, no local contracts to sign and no payroll to run. How does the time difference work in practice? Chiang Mai runs five hours ahead of Northern Europe, which leaves a long shared afternoon. The team joins your stand-up, questions get answered the same day, and work continues after your office closes. Teams working with UK and Nordic partners shift their hours slightly to widen the overlap where it helps. [Start a conversation](https://azendo.co/how-it-works/#start) [Browse the service lines →](https://azendo.co/services/)