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Know Before You Build

Technology Assessments

Four structured, scored assessments of your AI, cloud, security, and architecture by certified practitioners, each paired with a 12-month roadmap.

How ready your data, team, and stack are for AI

How much of your cloud spend is waste

How your security posture holds up to an audit

What your technical debt is costing you

Speak With Us

Explore the Indexes

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What is a scored assessment

Replace opinion with a score. Each index evaluates one part of your environment, quantifies the risks in dollars and sprint-weeks, and ends the same way: a score, a ranked risk list, and a 12-month roadmap. What you do with it is your call.

25+

Years of experience

90+

Net Promoter Score

Inc. 5000 Honoree

Inc. Power Partner

The Four Indexes

Pick the question you need answered.

Same four-week method, same 0 to 100 scoring, same deliverables. Each index points it at a different part of your technology, so findings from one sit cleanly beside another.

AI Readiness (AIR) Index

Scores six dimensions, from strategy and data to governance and culture, and names the binding constraint holding the others back. Run by Claude Certified Architects. Built for leadership teams with an AI mandate and a board asking how the investment pays off.

Get Your AI Readiness Assessment

Cloud Utilization & Efficiency (CUE) Index

Scores reliability, security, performance, cost, and operations, with every score traced to the system that produced it. In a recent engagement the same analysis surfaced more than $60,000 in annual savings. Built for teams on infrastructure set up for an earlier stage, or with cloud spend no one can tie to a product.

Get Your Cloud Assessment

Compliance, Operational Risk & Defense (CORD) Index

Scores your security and compliance posture on what can be shown, not what is intended, and surfaces access and defense gaps before someone outside the company finds them. Built for organizations facing an audit, a certification requirement, or partner and investor due diligence.

Get Your Compliance Assessment

Backlog, Architecture & Stack Evaluation (BASE) Index

Scores release velocity, architecture, and code quality, then sizes technical debt in sprint-weeks at market billing rates, so modernization enters the budget as a number, not an adjective. Built for product and engineering leaders whose releases keep slowing, or who inherited a codebase.

Ask About the BASE Index

Where to Start

Which Sounds Like Your Team?

AIR

"The board wants an AI plan, and we're not sure our data or team can support one."

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CUE

"Growth is coming, our cloud was set up for an earlier stage, and no one can explain the bill."

CORD

"We have an audit, a certification, or investor due diligence on the calendar."

BASE

"Every release takes longer than the last, and nobody can put a price on the technical debt."

Working Together

Every Index Runs
the Same Four Weeks

Week 1: Discovery
Stakeholder interviews, documentation review, access provisioning, and current-state mapping across every dimension.

Week 2: Assessment
Technical deep-dive, automated scanning tools, and manual review of systems, processes, and team capability.

Week 3: Analysis
Findings synthesis, severity classification, roadmap sequencing, and internal review with First Factory senior leadership.

Week 4: Readout
Executive presentation of the findings, a technical session with your engineering leads, and a recommended next step.

By the Numbers

Scoring Tiers

Each dimension is scored from 0 to 100. A composite score maps to one of three tiers, and the tier sets First Factory's recommended next step.

Tier

Recommended Path

Leveraged Score: 75–100

Strong foundations across every dimension. Proceed directly to implementation.

Transitional Score: 40–74

Foundations are in place but gaps remain in one or more dimensions. A phased approach is recommended: close the gaps first, then build.

Emergent Score: 0–39

Foundational remediation is required before further investment is safe. We start with the work that makes the next investment durable.

Deliverables

What You Receive

Every engagement ends with deliverables built for two audiences: the teams who will execute and the executives who will fund it.

Deliverable

Description

Scorecard

Every dimension scored 0 to 100, rolled into a composite score and tier.

Roadmap

A sequenced 12-month plan that separates quick wins (30 to 60 days) from longer-horizon investments.

Risk Register

Risks classified by severity with ownership assigned, quantified in dollars and sprint-weeks where possible.

Recommendations

The staffing and delivery model the findings call for.

Executive Readout

A board-ready summary delivered live, with First Factory senior leadership present. No implementation engagement is required to follow.

Side by Side

The Four Indexes at a Glance

Index

What It Scores and When It Fits

AIR · 6 dimensions

Can we support AI in production? Fits when an AI mandate needs a plan the board can fund. Signature finding: the binding constraint. Led by Claude Certified Architects.

CUE · 5 dimensions

Will our cloud hold up, and where is the waste? Fits when growth is coming on a platform built for an earlier stage. Every score traced to its source system. Led by certified cloud consultants.

CORD · 5 dimensions

Would we pass an audit today? Fits when an audit, certification, or investor review is on the calendar. Gaps found before an outsider finds them. Led by certified security and compliance consultants.

BASE · 4 dimensions

What is our technical debt costing us? Fits when releases are slowing and modernization has no price tag. Debt sized in sprint-weeks. Led by engineers who review production code every week.

HOW WE WORK

Assess. Build. Grow.

Most technology partners start at the build. We start at the question underneath it: what does your current environment actually support, and what will it cost you to find out the hard way? A scored assessment gives you a defensible answer before you commit budget. From there, the same team that ran the assessment executes the roadmap, and stays on to keep it running.

Assess

A scored, multi-dimension assessment across AI, cloud, security, or architecture. Delivered in four weeks by certified practitioners.

Build

Full-stack engineering execution on the roadmap the assessment produced. Product development, AI implementation, staff augmentation, or a scrum team.

Grow

Maintenance, performance tuning, and iteration that keeps what you built from degrading the moment you stop paying attention to it.

First Factory consultants reviewing assessment findings in a team meeting

Who We Are

Delivered by Certified Practitioners

Every index is led by First Factory consultants holding active certifications in the domain they evaluate. You get findings from practitioners who can also execute on them, not generalist account managers who hand off to a delivery team you have never met.

Certified in what they score

Claude Certified Architects run AIR. Certified cloud, security, and compliance consultants run CUE and CORD. BASE is run by senior engineers who review production code every week.

The same team runs the roadmap

The engineers who scored your environment can execute the plan and stay on to keep it running.

Trusted. Certified. Partner.

Claude Select Partner, AWS Partner, and SOC 2 Type 2 certified.

See Our Partnerships

Frequently asked questions

Everything you want to know about the assessments

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