Cycle Time on Advisory Engagements
Why measuring days from kickoff to first client deliverable reveals more than measuring fee alone.
Fee size tells partners what was sold. Cycle time tells them how the firm moves. On advisory work in Thailand, we often see proposals close quickly while kickoff waits on staffing, scope clarification, or client access to data rooms.
A clean cycle-time chart marks four gates: signed proposal, kickoff workshop, first substantive deliverable, and final invoice. Gaps between those gates are where margin quietly leaks — even when the eventual fee looks healthy.
Firms that only track closed revenue miss the weeks when a team is half-allocated and waiting. Visualizing idle intervals next to billed hours makes the cost of slow starts tangible in a partner meeting.
Start with twelve months of closed engagements in one practice unit. Exclude one-day workshops if they distort the median. Present medians and upper quartiles; averages hide the stalled outliers partners need to discuss.
Once partners see the pattern, staffing and scoping conversations become concrete: fewer overlapping starts, clearer access checklists, and earlier junior involvement on document-heavy phases.