On most engagements I say it on day one: start looking for the person who takes over from me. It lands oddly the first time. A consultant, asking you to plan for their exit before they’ve really started.
That’s the point. The connection between a problem and its solution gets lost the moment accountability is outsourced. If the plan from day one is that I embed and stay, the organisation never has to own the thing, and the moment I leave, it unwinds. Build for handover, not dependency.
So I contract in three-month intervals. Happy to renew, but the renewal is a regular, honest check on the value I’m adding. It keeps both sides sharp. And it puts upskilling and handover where they belong: in the statement of work, not as an afterthought once the budget runs out.
Delivery is what counts — not decks, not frameworks, not steering-committee theatre. The measure of a good engagement isn’t how indispensable I became. It’s whether your team can run the thing confidently after I’ve gone.