Open the Playbook
AI-first transformation consulting backed by production-grade
open-source infrastructure — not slide decks. 20+ years CTO / VP
Engineering / Architect designing and deploying digital twin
factories, agent kernels, and operational intelligence systems for
engineering teams.
Questions or to Schedule a Session: info@solidcage.com
Most "AI consultants" sell decks. I ship the actual infrastructure —
the open-source agent kernels, the digital twin factories, the
operational intelligence loops — and then deploy them into your
organization. The same playbook I use is on GitHub. You can read it,
fork it, and run it yourself — or hire me to install it for your
team.
20+ years of hands-on VP Eng/CTO/Architect experience, applied to one
specific job: replacing the operational layer of your engineering org
with an agentic operating system. Faster cycles, higher rate of
improvement, AI employees handling the cadences that humans burn out
on. With only 3-4 clients per year, you get white-glove attention,
including on-site collaboration for 6+ month engagements (travel
covered by you).
Curious to see me in action? Check out my YouTube channel
youtube.com/@Control-The-Outcome
where I dive into engineering team optimization, share actionable
strategies, and discuss challenges. This will give you a feel
for how I think, what you can expect, and how I apply systems over
goals thinking to deliver, get it straight from the source!
Digital twins of human roles are deployable today, not in
2027. The Digital Twin Factory framework gives you a
repeatable way to clone the operating cadence of a high
performer and run it 24/7.
The only metric that matters in an agentic org. The
Operational Intelligence Lab tracks how fast your system
gets better at getting better — week over week, twin over
twin, loop over loop.
Using ChatGPT is not the same as running an operating system
of AI employees. I close the gap — wiring the kernel, the
twins, and the improvement loops into a single system your
team actually runs on.
When growth exposed delivery bottlenecks and turnover
stalled throughput, I diagnosed constraints, clarified
decision rights, and realigned the team from the ground
up:
The results were slashed cycle times by 40%, reduced turnover to under 10%, $250K revenue per FTE, and a company positioned for scalable growth without inflating headcount.
I'm a member of CTOx.com, a premier network of 220+ vetted
fractional-CTO operators. When an agentic-OS engagement
needs a specific deep-domain perspective — security
architecture for an AI-augmented pipeline, scaling
infrastructure under twin-driven load, regulated-industry
deployment patterns — I tap the network directly.
This is how every Solid Cage engagement gets the depth
of a 220-person bench behind a single point of
accountability: me. You hire one operator. You get a network
of operators feeding the work.
Combined with my 20+ years of hands-on VP Eng / CTO /
Architect work and the open-source agentic OS stack I
maintain (agent-kernel, agent-factory, digital-twin-factory,
operational-intelligence-lab), this is the most
capital-efficient way to install a real agentic operating
system in your engineering org without hiring a 30-person
internal AI platform team.
Duration: 30 days
Price:
$5,000
Deliverables:
Best For: Founders and CTOs who keep hearing "we should do AI" and want a defensible answer about where to start.
Duration: 60 days
Price: $30,000
Deliverables:
Best For: Teams that have done the assessment and want one undeniable production win before going all-in.
Duration: 12 months
Price:
$100,000
Deliverables:
Kickstart with a 1-month pilot at $5,000 — a focused preview
of hands-on agentic OS work. 10 hours of dedicated senior
leadership (process baseline, first twin scoped, kernel
architecture sketch), 1 weekly 1-hour review.
Deliverable
is a tailored agentic OS roadmap with early KPIs (twins
shipped, Rate of Improvement targets, ROI per twin). No
lock-in.
Best For: Engineering organizations committed to running on an agentic operating system, not just sprinkling AI on top of existing process.
Agentic Readiness (30-60 Days)
Objective: Establish baselines for cycle time, decision
latency, and operational cadence; score readiness across
data, ops, governance, talent, tooling, leadership;
identify the first 1-2 workflows worth deploying as
digital twins.
Duration: 30-60
days, depending on client complexity.
Parallel Workstreams:
1. Client-Facing Discovery
2. Engineering
Deep Dive
Deliverable by Day 60: A unified "Kickoff Deck" combining both reports,
presented to leadership with initial AI tooling and PMF
recommendations.
First Production Twin (3-6 Months)
Objective: Design
the agentic OS architecture and ship the first
production digital twin owning a real recurring workflow
with humans-in-the-loop. Wire up Rate-of-Improvement
telemetry from day one.
Duration: 3-6 months, with
weekly and monthly progress reviews.
Activity Sequence:
1. Engineering Deep Dive (Months 1-2)
2.
Architecture Refinement (Months 2-4)
3. Engineering
Experience Overhaul (Months 3-6)
Reporting: Dashboards to management with KPIs, qualitative
wins and next steps.
Full Agentic OS Rollout (6-12 Months)
Objective: Stand
up the Twin Factory, install agent kernel + governance,
run Operational Intelligence loops on every twin, and
embed the EOS / Topgrading discipline for the human + AI
hybrid team.
Duration: 6-12 months, with
weekly and monthly progress reviews. On-site
collaboration available.
Activity Sequence:
1. Engineering Deep Dive (Months 1-2)
2.
Architecture Refinement (Months 2-4)
3. Engineering
Experience Overhaul (Months 3-6)
4. PMF
Acceleration - Idea Evaluator (Months 4-9)
5.
Cultural Shift: Owner’s Mindset (Months 6-12)
6.
Continuous Delivery (Months 6-12)
Reporting: Dashboards to management with KPIs, qualitative
wins and next steps.
1. Throughput: Meaningfully reduce cycle time and increase predictable
releases
2. Operational Stability:
Reduce attrition and chaotic delivery interruptions
3. Signal over Noise:
Shift from variable engineering output to reliable cadence
Objective: Score readiness across the 6 dimensions, baseline today's operating cadence, and pick the first 1-2 workflows worth deploying as digital twins.
Assess current
engineering processes, including cycle time, turnover, and
tech stack, to establish a baseline (e.g., cycle time = 10
days, turnover = 20%).
Evaluate client
needs, such as PMF status, revenue goals, and retention
challenges, by interviewing client success, sales, and
marketing teams.
Identify high-impact
AI adoption opportunities, such as replacing manual QA with
AI agents or automated code reviews, prioritize an "AI first
before human hire" approach to enhance efficiency without
expanding headcount.
Define metrics,
core values, and OKRs, ensuring a single source of truth for
tracking progress.
This phase establishes baselines for all KPIs (e.g., Cycle
Time, Turnover Rate), enabling measurable progress in Phase
2.
Objective: Ship the first
production digital twin, then scale into a full agentic operating
system —
twin factory, agent kernel, governance, and
Operational Intelligence loops measuring Rate of Improvement on every
twin.
Action: Conduct a
thorough assessment of current engineering processes,
including cycle time, turnover rates, and tech stack, to
establish baselines. Identify high-impact AI adoption
opportunities, such as replacing manual QA with AI agents to
improve efficiency without expanding headcount.
Impact:
Uncovers bottlenecks and unlocks targeted AI integrations
that automate repetitive tasks, freeing engineers for
high-value innovation.
KPI: Cuts Cycle
Time by 20-25% (10 to 7-8 days) by Month 3; boosts Rate of
Innovation with faster ideation cycles.
Action: Redesign your
system to align with PMF goals—mapping outcomes like 99.9%
uptime and 2x speed to budget and skills—while embedding AI
across ingestion, compute, and CICD with self-healing
features like auto-scaling.
Impact: Builds a
lean, scalable architecture that minimizes downtime and lets
your team focus on feature development over maintenance.
KPI: Reduces
Cycle Time by an additional 10% (7-8 to 6-7 days) by Month
4; increases Revenue per FTE as output rises.
Action: Streamline
workflows with pre-configured dev environments (e.g.,
Docker), a 20% tech debt refactor, 1-day CICD cycles via
GitHub Actions, and AI-driven docs/tests (50%+ automated),
while defining "Done" to ensure quality.
Impact: Enables
engineers to ship faster with less stress, shifting their
focus from maintenance to innovation.
KPI:
Achieves a 30-50% Cycle Time reduction (10 to 5-7 days) by
Month 6; increases Rate of Innovation to 3 features/quarter;
lowers Turnover Rate to 15% (from 20%).
Action: Leverage the
Idea Evaluator (People/Process/Tech, 80/20, Revenue/Risk) to
score and test product ideas with AI insights (e.g., Grok
ranks concepts), conducting 5-10 sales calls with client
success to build a "hell yes" case study through 30-60-90
sprints.
Impact:
Identifies true customer demand, eliminating guesswork and
delivering products that resonate.
KPI: Boosts
Client Retention Rate to 75-80% (from 70%) by Month 9;
increases ARR by 10-20% ($2M to $2.2M-$2.4M); sustains Rate
of Innovation at 3-4 features per quarter.
Action: Implement EOS
(metrics, Level 10 meetings, OKRs) and Topgrading to
hire/coach 1-2 A-players, while sharing my YouTube training
content (e.g., "Systems Over Goals") and gamifying AI use
with a "Prompt Leaderboard" to enhance engagement.
Impact: Aligns
your team to a unified vision, boosting talent retention and
fostering a strong sense of ownership.
KPI: Reduces
Turnover Rate below 10% by Month 12; raises Revenue per FTE
to $200k-$250k; achieves a Rate of Innovation of 4-6
features per quarter.
Action: Implement
PMF-driven CICD with weekly releases tied to client
feedback, prioritizing the top 20% of ideas (Idea Evaluator)
for revenue impact, and integrating engineering with client
success for real-time iteration.
Impact: Delivers
products customers truly want, driving business growth and
enhancing loyalty.
KPI: Increases
ARR by 20-40% ($2M to $2.4M-$2.8M) by Month 12; lifts Client
Retention Rate to 80-85%; achieves Revenue per FTE of
$250k+.
My entire methodology is open source.
Every framework, every prompt, every template — publicly
available on GitHub. If you can use it yourself, use it. If
you want me to deploy it for your organization, book a
session.
Open Source Ecosystem:
agent-kernel — core agent runtime: tools, memory, governance
primitives
agent-factory — production line for spinning up new digital
twins
agentic-playbook — deployment patterns, prompts, and operational
templates
operational-intelligence-lab — Rate-of-Improvement tracker and OI methodology
digital-twin-filip — the working twin of me — proof that the kernel
runs
digital-twin-factory — end-to-end factory pattern for client
engagements
Free Tools:
Agent ROI Generator + Readiness Scorecard — score your AI use case + readiness in 5 minutes
Read the ROI Deck — The ROI of AI Employees, the executive narrative
paired with the calculator
Digital Twin Builder Wizard — configure a twin for one of your workflows in 10
minutes
The Agentic OS Playbook — 11-slide deck on how AI employees actually run
workflows
Digital Twin Factories — 10-slide engineering deck on compiling roles into
production agents
OI Lab Rate-of-Improvement Tracker — measure how fast your system is getting better at
getting better