The phrase operational audit gets used loosely. Some consultants mean a financial review. Some mean a compliance check. At GridFlow PulseWave, it means one specific thing: a structured investigation into how work moves through your organisation, where it slows down, and what is causing the friction. Here is exactly what that looks like.
Week one: observation and interviews ¶
The audit starts with listening. Marcus spends the first week conducting structured interviews with people at every level of the organisation, from the people doing the daily work to the people setting direction. The questions are the same for everyone: what do you do, what slows you down, and what do you wish the person above or below you understood about your role. The answers are recorded and anonymised.
Week two: mapping the real process ¶
In week two, Marcus builds a map of how work actually moves, not how the org chart says it should move. This usually involves sitting alongside people as they work, reviewing email threads and shared documents, and tracing a handful of real pieces of work from start to finish. The gap between the official process and the real one is almost always where the problems live.
The report ¶
The audit ends with a written report of 20 to 40 pages. It covers what was found, ranked by impact and effort to fix. The first section is a one-page summary for leadership. The rest is detailed enough that the person responsible for each fix knows exactly what to do. Interview notes go in the appendix, anonymised.
What happens after the report ¶
The report is delivered in a two-hour session, not emailed cold. Marcus walks through the findings, answers questions, and helps the team agree on a starting point. Some clients move straight into a process redesign engagement. Others take the report and run with it internally. Both are fine.
If you are wondering whether an audit is the right starting point for your organisation, the 90-minute advisory session at £380 is a good way to find out before committing to anything longer.