What Is Claude Implementation (and What It Isn't)
Claude implementation isn't using Claude. Why the implementation gap exists, the three ways it breaks, and what makes a workflow your team keeps using.
ReadBuyer's guide
How to choose a Claude implementation partner.
Claude implementation is a new category, and a firm's claims are hard to check from the outside. These seven questions tell you what a firm has actually shipped. Each comes with what a good answer sounds like.
Seven questions
What to ask, and what a good answer sounds like.
Ask all seven before you sign anything. The first two can be checked without the firm's help, which is the point of asking them first.
01
Is the firm in the Claude Partner Network directory, and at what tier?
Anthropic's Partner Hub directory lists partners at Select tier and above; Registered firms are not listed. Search it by name before the first call. A good answer names the tier and, if the firm is not yet listed, says so plainly and tells you where it stands.
02
How many certified people does it actually have?
Certifications are individual. Ask how many people hold the Claude Certified Architect – Foundations credential, and for the Credly link of each person who will work on your engagement. A good answer is a list of names with verification links, not a summary.
03
Does it serve businesses your size, or is it an enterprise shop taking a small job?
Ask what its typical client looks like: the size of the business, the size of the team that will use Claude, and the size of the engagement. Firms built for large enterprises do excellent work at that scale; the question is whether yours is the scale they are built for. A good answer describes a client that looks like you and what was built for them.
04
Who does the delivery work?
The person who sells the engagement is often not the person who does it. Ask who will be on your project, what they have shipped, and whether the people who ran the sales conversation stay involved after the contract is signed. A good answer names the people and their credentials, and says how much of each person's time you are getting.
05
What happens at handover?
Ask what you will hold when the engagement ends: the prompt and skill libraries, the user guides, the accounts, any code, and whether your team has been trained to run it. A good answer is specific about what is yours outright and what, if anything, the firm keeps operating for you, and it puts both in the proposal.
06
What does it cost, and when?
Ask for a fixed price against a written scope, with a timeline and a handoff date, so the price does not depend on how long the work takes. A good answer is a proposal you can read in ten minutes, with the scope, the price, what is not included, and when payment is due.
07
Can it name a client of your size, with real numbers?
Ask for a client you can read about, with figures the client stands behind: hours returned, a procedure retired, a task that went from an afternoon to a few minutes. A good answer is a published case study with the client's name on it, or a reference you can call. Testimonials without numbers, and numbers without a name, are weaker evidence.
For the record
How Shannon Advisory answers the same questions.
Check us the same way. Here is where we stand on each of the seven, as of September 2026.
01 · Directory and tier
Shannon Advisory is a member of the Claude Partner Network. Our directory listing and tier will be on this page as soon as the directory shows them.
02 · Certified people
13 people who work with Shannon Advisory hold the credential. The team page lists those who have agreed to be named, each with a Credly link.
03 · Businesses your size
Small and midsize businesses only. Our published client is a Houston process-serving firm with a small in-house team and a network of contract servers.
04 · Who does the work
Every client works with both co-founders directly. Ryan Kashtan leads delivery, with certified architects on the build.
05 · Handover
Skill libraries, prompt libraries, and user guides are yours outright, and your team is trained on them before handoff. Where an engagement includes custom software, the proposal sets the ownership and operating terms.
06 · Cost
Pricing by proposal: a fixed scope, a timeline, and a price, after an intro call at no charge. What an engagement looks like.
07 · A client with numbers
Lone Star Attorney Service: process-server onboarding cut from about 20 minutes of manual work to about a minute of review, a 12-step procedure retired, and the app transferred to the client. Read the case study.