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Business Software · Project assessment

Turning a consulting methodology into a subscription product

A consulting firm turned spreadsheet-based delivery assessments into a configurable SaaS product, connecting its methodology with project planning and portfolio decisions.

  • Assessment SaaS
  • Configurable rules
  • Jira integration
  • Methodology productization

At a glance

Business need
Make consulting expertise available through self-service
Product
Multi-tenant assessment and portfolio platform
Delivery
Product development and continuing releases
Technology
.NET, Angular, SQL Server, Azure

The business context

The consulting method was the product. The spreadsheet limited how it could be delivered.

A project sponsor needs to choose a delivery approach before committing people and budget. The answer depends on organizational readiness, project constraints, and risk. The client’s consultants already had a method for evaluating those factors, supported by linked questions, weightings, and recommendations in Excel.

That expertise was valuable beyond a consulting engagement, but distributing a spreadsheet did not create a subscription service. The firm wanted organizations to complete consistent assessments online, understand the recommended approach, and take the resulting deliverables into their own project tools. Shinetech helped turn that operating model into a web product.

Reconstructed assessment form with project questions, a suggested delivery approach, and recommended planning documents.
System view

A project assessment with a visible next step

A fictional assessment illustrates how structured answers can lead to a delivery recommendation and working documents. The questions, values, and recommendation are illustrative; they do not reproduce the client’s proprietary methodology. View full-size interface (new tab)

The operating challenge

The rules had to remain editable after they left Excel.

Moving cells into web forms would have reproduced the visible questionnaire while losing the relationships behind it. Answers influenced scores, scores informed a delivery approach, and that approach changed the risks and deliverables worth considering. Those relationships also evolved as the consultancy refined its practice.

The product needed another kind of separation as well: different subscribing organizations had to work within their own data and access rights. A reusable assessment template could be shared across the service; an organization’s projects, answers, and reports could not.

The delivery decisions

Make the method configurable, then connect its output to delivery.

  1. 01

    Model the assessment as data

    Questions, scoring factors, constraints, recommendation rules, and deliverable templates became managed configuration. The client could update the supported methodology without treating every adjustment as a software release. Guided assessments brought those elements together into a repeatable user journey.

  2. 02

    Design for subscribing organizations

    The platform included organization-level data separation, role-based access, subscription levels, enterprise sign-in, and audit records. These capabilities supported the move from a consultant’s individual working file to a service used by multiple customer organizations.

  3. 03

    Keep planning integrations outside the interactive request

    Jira work ran through asynchronous Azure Functions tasks. Microsoft Project file processing used a separate Windows service because its dependencies did not fit the web application’s runtime. The assessment experience and each integration could therefore be operated and monitored separately.

How the workflow holds together

An assessment needed a useful next step.

From recommendation to working material

The workflow continued from delivery-approach selection into risk assessment, recommended deliverables, templates, and exported reports. Users could carry that material into Jira and Microsoft Project instead of manually recreating the assessment’s output in a planning tool.

Portfolio capabilities later added another level of context: projects, sponsors, dependencies, constraints, resources, and scoring factors could be viewed together. Automated tests covered business rules across the application, service, and data layers, supporting continued changes to a product whose value depended on consistent interpretation of the methodology.

The delivered result

Consulting expertise became a service customers could use directly.

Self-service assessment

Customers could complete a consistent online process instead of relying on a consultant to operate an Excel workbook.

A maintainable methodology

Managed questions, rules, and templates gave the firm a practical way to evolve its approach.

A wider product

Reporting, planning integrations, and portfolio capabilities extended the original assessment workflow.

The platform entered production and continues to be used and developed. Its commercial role is to make the client’s own methodology available through a subscription product.

Case taxonomy

Searchable by industry, technology, product, and business need.

Industry and product

  • Business Software
  • Consulting software
  • Assessment SaaS

Technology and delivery

  • .NET
  • Angular
  • Azure
  • Multi-tenant architecture
  • Jira integration
  • Microsoft Project integration

Business need

  • Configurable rules
  • Methodology productization
  • Risk assessment
  • Portfolio management