01 · tumbling
Operations audit report
A plain-English document, usually twelve to twenty pages, that maps how your organisation currently runs and identifies…
From £2,400We figure it out. Usually.
Held together with logic and glee.
GridWave FlowShift is a small consultancy that helps organisations untangle their operations, workflows, and planning messes. And we have made every mistake ourselves first, which helps.
02 · tumbling
Process map set
Hand-drawn and then digitised in Miro or Lucidchart, depending on what your team already uses. Each map shows the real …
Included in redesign03 · tumbling
Documentation package
Clean, version-controlled process documentation written for the people who actually run the process. We write it in you…
From £1,80004 · tumbling
Quarterly planning workbook
A structured workbook we build for your team before each planning session. It includes a review of the previous quarter…
Included in planning sessions05 · tumbling
Change rollout tracker
A simple, shared tracker we set up at the start of a change management engagement. It logs what is changing, who owns e…
Included in change supportFAQ
Turns out 'yes' is not a project plan.
We now lead with the one-page summary. Always.
We absorbed four extra weeks and wrote a better contract.
The session was fine. The outcomes were not. Pre-work is non-negotiable now.
Version control is a love language. We speak it fluently now.
Good work costs what it costs. We learned to say the number out loud.
With respect
How we got here
Marcus Hale started GridWave FlowShift in the spring of 2019 after seven years running operations for a mid-size logistics company in Bristol. The job was fine. The processes were not. He spent most of those seven years…
Read moreNews & Announcements
News & Announcements
2026-05-20
How to run an operations audit on your own team
Most organisations know something is not working. The harder part is knowing which something, and in what order to fix it. An operations audit is a structured way to find out. It does not have to be expensive or complicated, but it does have to be honest.
Read more →2026-04-10
Why process documentation fails and what to do instead
We have seen a lot of process documentation. Some of it is excellent. Most of it is a 40-page PDF that lives in a shared drive folder called 'Operations' and has not been opened since the month it was created. The problem is almost never the content. It is the format.
Read more →2026-03-15
Capacity planning for small teams without a spreadsheet nightmare
Most small teams do not do capacity planning. They do optimism planning. They look at the work coming in, assume everyone will be at full productivity, forget about meetings and admin and the unexpected thing that always happens, and say yes. Then they wonder why everything is late.
Read more →Our products
What we actually do
- Workflow mapping
- We sit with your team, trace every handoff, and draw the real process. Not the one in the handbook. Usually there are surprises. Sometimes there are gasps.
- Capacity planning
- We help you figure out what your team can actually carry versus what you keep piling on. The gap is almost always bigger than expected.
- Change rollout support
- We stay through the messy middle. The part after the strategy deck and before things actually work. That bit is where most plans fall apart.
FAQ
Common questions
How big does our team need to be for this to be worth it?
We have worked with teams as small as six and as large as eighty. The sweet spot is usually ten to forty people. Below that, the overhead of a formal process audit can outweigh the benefit. If you are not sure, book a scoping call and we will tell you honestly whether it makes sense.
Do you work remotely or do you need to be on-site?
Both. Some work is better in person, particularly the early discovery phase and any facilitated sessions. Most of the documentation and planning work can be done remotely. We will tell you upfront which parts we think need a room and which do not.
How long does a typical engagement last?
An operations audit is usually two to three weeks. A full workflow redesign with implementation support runs eight to fourteen weeks depending on scope. We do not do open-ended retainers with no defined outcome. Every engagement has a clear end point.
We already have a project manager. Why would we need you?
A good project manager runs the work. We look at how the work is structured in the first place. The two are different things and they work well together. We often end up collaborating closely with in-house PMs rather than replacing them.
What happens after the engagement ends?
We do a proper handover. That means a written summary of what changed, why, and what to watch for. We also do a check-in call four to six weeks later to see how things are holding. We do not just disappear.