Outsourcing Lifecycle Management.
The full five-phase lifecycle, end to end — the foundational course, required before both master classes.
2 days · onsite · up to 15 · taught by Phil Hatch
Course format.
Run the whole lifecycle.
The course teaches students to run an agentic AI outsourcing engagement from preparation to exit. Every student completes it before the two master classes.
Failure in the engagements studied is institutional in origin rather than technical. Failure categories change as the engagement progresses throughout its lifecycle. A team that manages each phase against that evidence changes the odds. Each student leaves with a sponsor-ready plan for a live engagement.
What you will learn.
- Understand key failure points throughout an outsourcing engagement.
- Run an agentic AI outsourcing engagement across all five lifecycle phases.
- Score client readiness on evidence before the work reaches the market.
- Set the co-management foundation at signature, and adopt an always-on co-management maturation mentality.
- Read the early signs of a failing engagement.
- Hold exit optionality from the start.
- Build a sponsor-ready management plan for a live engagement.
The five phases.
1 · Preparation
Client preparation was the weakest of the five problem areas identified in the Outsourcing 2026: Agentic AI and Tier 1 Financial Institutions study, with a score of 3.52 out of 10. Five readiness gaps carry it, each a damaging issue in the engagements shown:
- Governance and responsiveness: 87 of 150 engagements.
- Process readiness: 94 of 150.
- Data readiness: 93 of 150.
- Legacy estate: 96 of 150.
- People and skills: 58 of 150.
Students learn to score each gap on evidence and to close it before the work reaches the market.
2 · Procurement
Students learn to build the market side of the engagement:
- Sourcing strategy.
- Labor availability for agentic delivery.
- The RFI and RFP, written for agentic work.
- Vendor evaluation on evidence.
- Build the co-management foundation, set before signature.
3 · Transition
Students learn to stand the engagement up without losing what holds it together:
- Retained-team buildout.
- Knowledge transfer, before the people who hold it leave.
- The co-management operating model.
- Agentic AI training and proof.
- Business continuity.
- The final validation gate before production.
4 · Production
Co-management becomes the primary success factor once an engagement reaches production. The study puts the failure there. Joint co-management leads the five problem areas as engagements mature. Students learn to run the seam:
- Daily co-management and operating cadence.
- Governance and oversight of production.
- Cross-firm visibility.
- Change control.
- Performance management.
- Risk, issue, and dispute resolution.
- Human management.
5 · Exit
Most institutions never plan it. Students learn to hold genuine exit optionality: the ability to move, repatriate, or re-source the work without a crisis. Exit optionality is built at signature and maintained throughout, not assembled under pressure.
How the class works, and what you leave with.
Each student leaves with a sponsor-ready management plan for a live engagement they own. The plan is peer-reviewed in the room and structured for presentation in the first week after the class.
The course serves as the foundation for the two master classes: one on governance and one on performance. A student completes this course first, then takes either master class using their real-world engagements as the class anchor.
The Academy
All courses →Governance, Oversight & Risk
The control function agentic outsourcing requires, taught through the students’ own live engagements.
Performance Optimization
Read a live engagement’s true performance, and build the board-defendable plan to improve it.
Academy home
Three onsite courses that turn the study’s evidence into how a bank prepares for, governs, and improves an agentic AI outsourcing engagement.