Black Box scope & engagement — bRRAIn Docs

What a Black Box engagement looks like — phases, deliverables, governance.

Black Box scope & engagement

A Black Box engagement is a multi-phase, multi-month relationship. This page describes how it's structured and what to expect at each phase.

Roles

Each engagement is staffed by:

  • bRRAIn Executive Sponsor — a member of bRRAIn senior leadership accountable for the engagement.
  • bRRAIn Engagement Lead — your single point of contact, drives the engagement day-to-day.
  • bRRAIn Architect — leads technical design.
  • bRRAIn Handler Engineer — leads custom Handler design and training.
  • bRRAIn Embedded Engineers — pair with your team during build.
  • bRRAIn Security Officer — leads security posture and compliance.

On your side, we look for:

  • Executive Sponsor with budget authority.
  • Project Lead with day-to-day decisioning authority.
  • Technical Lead with system-of-record authority.
  • Security / Compliance Lead with policy authority.
  • Change Management Lead for rollout.

Phase 1 — Initial conversation (30 minutes)

Mutual-fit assessment. We discuss:

  • Your AI initiative, its current state, its strategic priority.
  • Why standard isn't sufficient.
  • Our suitability for your use case.
  • Rough scoping (timeline, budget range).
  • Next steps.

Either side can decide not to proceed without commitment.

Phase 2 — NDA signing

Mutual NDA covers all subsequent disclosures. Standard turn-around is 5–10 business days.

Phase 3 — Discovery (4–8 weeks)

Discovery is the most consequential phase. We meet weekly (sometimes more) with:

  • Stakeholder interviews — executives, line-of-business leaders, IT, security, compliance, operations.
  • System inventories — what's running today, what depends on what, what's planned.
  • Use-case workshops — deep dive on each AI use case under consideration.
  • Data audits — what data exists, where it lives, who owns it, how clean it is.
  • Constraint surveys — regulatory, contractual, organizational.
  • Outcome definition — what success looks like measurably.

Discovery output: a comprehensive understanding of your environment, ready to design against.

Phase 4 — Detailed Implementation Brief (2–3 weeks)

A written document covering:

  • Recommended architecture.
  • Data flow diagrams.
  • Integration map.
  • Handler design (training corpus, evaluation suite, deployment topology).
  • Custom marketplace extensions to be built.
  • Security posture.
  • Compliance approach.
  • Implementation timeline with milestones.
  • Cost estimate (platform, build, embedded engineering, infrastructure pass-through).
  • Risk register.
  • Governance model.

Brief delivery is a key milestone. We walk you through it in person; you take time to review.

Phase 5 — Brief review and SOW

You review the brief with your team and stakeholders. Common outcomes:

  • Approve as-is and proceed — SOW drafted from the brief.
  • Approve with revisions — we revise; SOW drafted from the revised brief.
  • Pause for further discovery — additional discovery sub-phase.
  • Decline to proceed — engagement ends; discovery fees are not refunded but credit applies if you re-engage within 12 months.

SOW is a formal contract signed by both executives.

Phase 6 — Build (variable, typically 4–9 months)

The build phase delivers everything in the brief:

  • Infrastructure stood up.
  • Custom Handler trained, evaluated, deployed.
  • Custom integrations built and tested.
  • Custom marketplace extensions built.
  • Embedded engineers pair with your team for skills transfer.
  • Pilot environment ready.

Weekly status; monthly executive readouts; quarterly steering committee.

Phase 7 — Pilot (8–16 weeks)

Controlled rollout to a defined pilot population:

  • Pilot users onboarded.
  • Pilot use cases validated against acceptance criteria.
  • Issue triage and remediation.
  • Adoption measurement.
  • Pilot report at the end with go / no-go recommendation.

Phase 8 — General availability

Full rollout to your organization:

  • Production deployment.
  • Member onboarding at scale.
  • Change management programs.
  • Support escalation path established.
  • Hand-off from build team to steady-state team.

Phase 9 — Steady state

Ongoing engagement:

  • Dedicated CSM.
  • Quarterly business reviews with executive sponsors.
  • Annual hardening reviews (security, compliance, architecture).
  • Roadmap input on platform priorities.
  • Custom-feature requests via formal change-control.

Termination

Engagements include orderly-termination provisions:

  • 90 days notice from either side after initial term.
  • Data export support.
  • Customer transition to standard tier (where viable).
  • Knowledge transfer and runbook hand-off.

Where to next