HOW WE WORK
Three rules.
Fixed price stays honest.
The Mangrove Manifesto commits to accountability over estimation, full context over coordination, working code over artefacts. This is what that looks like day to day. Three rules. Each chosen because it makes the commercials honest and the work visible without inviting overhead.
01 / The Three Rules
How an engagement actually runs.
No standup. No sprint review. No retro. No backlog grooming. If a ceremony isn't on this page, it doesn't exist on a Mangrove engagement by default.
01
PROCESS
Progress goes out weekly, in writing
Every Friday you receive a one-page report. Same format every week. No ceremony, no meeting, no slides.
IT COVERS
- →What landed this week: visible deliverables, demos, deploys
- →Under the waterline: invisible plumbing that moves the work forward, expressed in numbers where possible (coverage, accuracy, throughput, stages documented)
- →Plan vs actual: named workstreams against the stage plan
- →Risks and blockers
- →Decisions needed from you: specific, scoped, time-boxed
- →Next week: three bullets, no more
You read it in five minutes. You reply if you need to. You ignore it if you don't. The format is deliberately the same week to week so you can scan for change rather than re-read structure. In data-heavy or platform work, the majority of a week's effort is invisible. The 'under the waterline' section makes that work countable. Numbers move week to week even when nothing ships.
MAPS TO MANIFESTO VALUE: WORKING CODE OVER ARTEFACTS
02
CONTRACT
Change requests go in writing
If you want a change to scope, send it in writing. Email is fine. The request can be three sentences.
IN RETURN, YOU GET
- →A clear written response with revised scope, price, and timeline
- →An explicit decision: in-scope adjustment, paid change, or no
- →A short window (usually one to two days) to make the call
This is the only path that makes fixed-price commitments honest. Without a written change trail, scope drifts, price drifts, and the contract becomes T&M with extra steps. Writing forces the change to be specific enough to be priced, and gives both sides something to point to later. This isn't bureaucracy. What matters is that the request exists in writing.
MAPS TO MANIFESTO VALUE: ACCOUNTABILITY OVER ESTIMATION
03
ORGANISATION
Meetings are a paid choice
Meetings are fine when you genuinely need the back-and-forth. They're billed transparently when you book one, at the prevailing hourly rate.
FOR EVERY MEETING WE RUN
- →AI transcription and summary, shared after
- →Decisions and actions captured in writing
- →Anything that affects scope follows rule two: a written change request
The reason meetings are metered is not that they are bad. It's that everything that mattered in the meeting ends up in writing afterwards anyway, which makes the meeting itself the more expensive path to the same outcome. Pricing it honestly lets you choose: pay for the conversation when you need it, default to writing when you don't. A side benefit: this kills the 'quick chat' pathology where scope grows in hallways. If a request didn't go through writing, it wasn't scoped, wasn't priced, and isn't committed.
MAPS TO MANIFESTO VALUE: FULL CONTEXT OVER COORDINATION
02 / What This Means For You
The shape of the engagement.
What you can expect, what we expect from you, when. Nothing else.
03 / Why This Works
The values map directly to the rules.
The manifesto says what we believe. The rules say what we do about it.
MANIFESTO VALUE
Working code over artefacts
WAYS-OF-WORKING RULE
Progress goes out weekly, in writing
MANIFESTO VALUE
Accountability over estimation
WAYS-OF-WORKING RULE
Change requests go in writing
MANIFESTO VALUE
Full context over coordination
WAYS-OF-WORKING RULE
Meetings are a paid choice
It also fixes a coordination-cost problem most agencies pretend doesn't exist. Every minute spent in standups, sprint planning, and synchronous status updates is a minute not building. Async, written, metered communication keeps the build window open.
04 / When This Doesn't Apply
Discovery work runs differently.
This model assumes a delivery engagement with knowable scope: a build, a migration, a system replacement, an integration. If the engagement is genuinely exploratory (pure research, prototyping a new business model, advisory-only), the same rules don't all fit. Discovery work runs on time and materials with a written summary at the end of each block.
If you're not sure which mode applies, that's the first thing we work out together, in writing.
Ready to see this in practice?
Fixed price. Clear spec. Money-back guarantee. Weekly written progress from day one.