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Advisory

Expert-led IT assessments and workshops

Fixed scope, fixed price, delivered by our consultants.

1
Scope → Assess → Recommend
Overview

Avocado's Advisory engagements are short, fixed-scope assessments and workshops that show you where your technology stands and what to do next. Each one is led by senior consultants across quality engineering, observability, cybersecurity, software delivery and AI, and finishes with a prioritised set of recommendations you can act on, with or without us.

Fixed scope, clear outcomes

Know where you stand and what to do next

Every Advisory engagement is a short, fixed-scope assessment or workshop led by senior consultants, finishing with a prioritised set of recommendations you can act on.

Talk to us about an assessment

What's included

Every Advisory engagement answers a specific question in a set timeframe. Choose a review to understand where you stand today or a workshop to decide where to go next.

Reviews and maturity assessments

Diagnostic engagements that benchmark your current state and show you the gaps that matter.

Software Delivery

Governance Framework Review

Know exactly where your governance stands.

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Quality Engineering

Test Strategy and QA Assurance Review

Get an independent view on your test strategy and process.

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Quality Engineering

Test Capability Review

See how the full scope of your quality practices measure up.

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Software Delivery

Architecture Review

Uncover gaps before they become expensive.

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Quality Engineering

Test Automation Maturity Assessment

Find out what is holding your automation back.

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Cybersecurity

Cybersecurity Maturity Assessment

Find out where there are gaps in your defences.

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Observability

Observability Maturity Assessment

See what your monitoring is missing.

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Software Delivery

DevOps Maturity Assessment

Find the fastest ways to improve your delivery pipeline.

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Strategy and enablement workshops

Forward-looking engagements that help your leaders set direction and make confident decisions.

Data and AI

AI Strategy Workshop

Identify and prioritise the AI opportunities worth pursuing.

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Data and AI

AI Readiness and Feasibility Study

Test whether an AI idea will work before you commit to building it.

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Data and AI

AI Leadership and Governance Workshop

Equip your board and leaders to guide AI adoption with confidence.

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Why start with an assessment?

Most technology problems are easier to solve once they have been measured. Testing that keeps slipping, alerts nobody trusts, audit findings that return every year: each usually has a small number of root causes, but without an independent view it is hard to know which ones to tackle first or how to make the case for investment.

An Advisory engagement gives you that view in weeks rather than months. You get an objective baseline, a clear picture of your biggest risks and opportunities, and a roadmap your leadership team can back. It is also a low-risk way to see how we work before committing to anything larger.

Why choose Avocado

Practitioners, not just advisers

Your engagement is led by consultants who deliver this work every day, not a generalist team working from a template.

Specialists across the technology lifecycle

Our teams span quality engineering, observability, cybersecurity, software delivery and AI, so findings reflect how your systems actually connect.

Grounded in Australian context

As an Australian-owned firm, we assess against the standards and regulations that apply to you, including frameworks such as the Essential Eight, APRA CPS 234 and the SOCI Act where relevant.

Recommendations you can act on

Every engagement ends with prioritised recommendations your own team can deliver. If you want support, we can help, but there is no obligation.

How our engagements work

The same simple structure, every time

01

Scope

We agree the questions you need answered, who we will speak to and the timeframe, and confirm the fixed scope before any work begins.

02

Discover

We run stakeholder interviews and workshops, review documentation and, where relevant, look at your tooling and data.

03

Assess

We benchmark what we find against recognised frameworks and industry practice, and identify the gaps that matter most.

04

Recommend

You receive a clear report and prioritised roadmap, walked through in a playback session with your leadership team.

Not sure which engagement fits?

Tell us what you are trying to solve and we will recommend the right starting point.

The engagements in detail

Test Strategy and QA Assurance Review

Get an independent view on whether your testing will hold up.

Who it's for

Organisations relying on an external vendor or delivery partner for a major build, or heading towards a go-live, that want an independent check on the testing behind it.

What we look at

Your test strategy and plans, coverage against requirements and risk, the vendor's test cases and evidence, entry and exit criteria, defect management, and test environments and data.

What you get

A findings report with gaps rated by severity, practical recommendations, and an independent assurance view you can take to your steering committee.

Test Capability Review

See how your quality practices measure up.

Who it's for

Organisations where testing is informal or inconsistent across teams, or where a growing pipeline of projects needs a reliable quality baseline.

What we look at

Testing methodology and governance, roles and responsibilities, testing levels and sign-off, defect and risk management, requirements traceability, tooling, metrics and user acceptance testing.

What you get

A maturity baseline, a gap analysis against good practice and a prioritised roadmap to a consistent, repeatable quality capability.

Test Automation Maturity Assessment

Find out what is holding your automation back.

Who it's for

Teams still relying on manual regression testing, or whose automation has stalled, become brittle or stopped delivering value.

What we look at

Current automation coverage and framework design, tooling, maintainability, integration with your delivery pipeline, team skills, and where automation will return the most.

What you get

A maturity score, a prioritised list of automation opportunities and a practical roadmap your team can follow.

DevOps Maturity Assessment

Find the fastest ways to improve your delivery pipeline.

Who it's for

Teams whose releases are slow, manual or risky, or who want to know how their delivery performance compares with good practice.

What we look at

Your build, test and deployment pipeline, environments, release practices, security controls in the pipeline, and delivery metrics such as deployment frequency and lead time for changes.

What you get

A baseline against recognised delivery metrics, the bottlenecks slowing you down and a prioritised set of improvements.

Prefer to start on your own?

Try an online self-assessment

Our online self-assessments take around five minutes and give you an indicative view of your maturity in a specific area. Use your results to start the conversation with your team and decision makers, or book a complimentary call with one of our consultants to talk them through. When you need an expert-led, evidence-based picture, an Advisory engagement goes much further.

Explore all self-assessments

What's the proof?

A few examples of where an Advisory engagement has made a difference.

From Access database to cloud lakehouse

From Access database to cloud lakehouse

How Avocado migrated an Australian packaging manufacturer from Microsoft Access to a cloud lakehouse, with consistent QA records and automated reporting.

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A governed, in-house alternative to Copilot

A governed, in-house alternative to Copilot

How Avocado built a private AI assistant for an Australian economics consultancy, with governance, access controls and built-in consulting workflows.

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Laying the Foundation for Quality Assurance

Laying the Foundation for Quality Assurance

Avocado designed an enterprise testing framework and QA strategy for a state-owned water utility, with reusable artefacts, governance and full capability handover.

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Taking the risk out of certificate renewals for a major public sector agency

Taking the risk out of certificate renewals for a major public sector agency

Avocado Consulting and 2Steps automated certificate retrieval, installation and verification for a large Australian public sector agency.

Read the case study
Voice AI Case Study: Momento Hospitality
Agentic AI

Voice AI Case Study: Momento Hospitality

See how a voice AI agent we built cut staff-handled calls by 75% and drove US$236K in monthly bookings across eight Sydney venues.

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A national sports website rebuilt in four months, ready for the season

A national sports website rebuilt in four months, ready for the season

Avocado helped a subsidiary of Australia's largest telecommunications company deliver the biggest upgrade in its sports website's history

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47,000 users across five divisions moved to cloud collaboration, on schedule

47,000 users across five divisions moved to cloud collaboration, on schedule

Avocado helped a major bank move around 47,000 users across five divisions onto a cloud-based collaboration service, in waves of 1,500 users

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Practice management platform rolled out to more than 700 financial planning practices

Practice management platform rolled out to more than 700 financial planning practices

Avocado helped a leading wealth manager roll out a CRM and practice management platform to 700+ planning practices, integrated with core systems.

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New credit card launched and card portfolio migrated, on an immovable deadline

New credit card launched and card portfolio migrated, on an immovable deadline

One of Australia's big four banks engaged Avocado to deliver a critically important program over 18 months.

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Frequently asked questions

What is an IT assessment?

An IT assessment is a structured review of part of your technology environment, such as security, testing or observability, measured against recognised frameworks and good practice. It shows you where you stand today, where the gaps are and what to prioritise next.

How long does an Advisory engagement take?

Most engagements run for a few days to a few weeks, depending on the scope and the size of your organisation. We confirm the timeframe with you before any work begins.

What do we receive at the end?

You receive a findings report, a prioritised roadmap and a playback session with your leadership team. Workshops also produce a documented output, such as a prioritised list of opportunities or a leadership playbook.

Do we have to use Avocado to implement the recommendations?

No. Our recommendations are written so your own team can act on them. If you would like help delivering them, we can support you, but there is no obligation.

How is this different from your online self-assessments?

The online self-assessments are short questionnaires that give an indicative score based on your own answers. An Advisory engagement is led by our consultants and draws on interviews, documentation and, where relevant, your tooling and data, so the findings are evidence-based and specific to your organisation.

Which engagement should we start with?

Start with the area causing the most risk or friction today. If you are not sure, talk to us and we will recommend a starting point based on your priorities.

Deliver with certainty

Find out where you stand

Book a conversation with our team to scope the right assessment or workshop for your organisation.