EngagementsIT services

Size an AI-enabled SIAM programme without guessing

For bid and solutioning teams who must size the implementation and run phases of a service-integration-and-management programme where AI tooling now handles part of the ticket flow.

Engagement type
Solo Pod
Experts
1 lead · 1 consulted
Hours
~40
Duration
2 weeks

What the client needed

A bidder had to size the implementation and the operate phase of a SIAM programme with AI tooling in the incident, request and change flow: team shape by tower, tooling, offshore mix, and how effort moves with each additional process or supplier in scope.

The numbers it needed — effort for small, medium and large implementations, phase splits, the pyramid, tickets per FTE in run — exist only with people who have priced and run such programmes.

The brief

The questions on the table

As the client wrote them, lightly shortened. Client and respondents are not named.

  1. Q1

    What defines a small, medium and large AI-enabled SIAM implementation — suppliers, processes, maturity, governance — and what are the typical effort and timeline for each?

  2. Q2

    How does implementation effort split across planning, assessment, operating-model design, process build, ITSM tool alignment and handover, and what pyramid and offshore percentage apply?

  3. Q3

    If scope grows by one process, or by one supplier, how much does effort move?

  4. Q4

    In run, what tickets-per-FTE thumb rules apply per process today, and how far does agentic AI move them over 18–24 months?

  5. Q5

    How does run effort fall when the SIAM vendor is also the lead managed-services vendor, or the primary vendor in a consolidation?

The hours

What the work involved

  1. 01

    Reviewed the bid scope

    Mapped the customer's process list and supplier count onto the small/medium/large definitions the workbook uses, and listed the characteristics the bid did not state — current process maturity, tool landscape, governance model — with the assumption to carry for each.

  2. 02

    Filled the sizing workbook by tower

    Implementation, transition and steady state, each with ranges rather than points. The pyramid by level and the offshore percentage per phase. For every line, the assumption that drives it and the scope lever — one more process, one more supplier — that moves it, with the movement stated as a percentage.

  3. 03

    Separated what AI tooling changes from what it does not

    Process by process in run: where agentic tooling already cuts tickets per FTE, where the saving is still claimed rather than seen, and where human ownership stays. Written as a one-page note the bid could lift straight into its solution narrative.

  4. 04

    Priced the run scenarios

    Standalone SIAM, SIAM plus lead managed services, and primary vendor in a consolidation, as effort relative to the standalone case, with the reasons.

  5. 05

    Review call and revision

    One working call with the bid team; two towers re-sized after it, with the changes tracked in the workbook.

Deliverables

What the client received

  • The sizing workbookBy tower — implementation, transition, steady state — with ranges, pyramid, offshore mix and the assumption behind every line.
  • Scope sensitivitiesWhat one more process and one more supplier do to effort, as percentages.
  • The AI tooling noteOne page on where agentic AI reduces run effort today, where it does not yet, and the tickets-per-FTE rules to use.
  • Run scenariosStandalone, lead managed-services vendor and consolidation cases, relative to each other.
  • One review call and a revisionWith the changes tracked.

The terms

What an engagement like this costs

You buy hours in blocks and can change the expert at the end of any block, at no extra cost. Longer projects run in stages: pause after a block, pick up the next stage when you are ready.

Pricing in full →

Rate band
$65–$250 /hr
Senior specialists can be up to $500
Hour blocks
1 · 2 · 5 · 10 · 20 · 50 · custom
This engagement
Solo Pod · ~40 hours · 2 weeks

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Sizing a SIAM or ITSM bid?

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