Engagement 01

The Workflow Assessment

Three to four weeks inside one operational area. I interview the people who do the work, watch how it actually moves, and hand you a plan that says exactly where AI belongs, where it does not, and what each change is worth.

What you receive

Six deliverables, all in executive language.

Current-state workflow map
How the work moves today, including the handoffs, rework loops, and workarounds nobody documented.
AI opportunity map
Every task sorted into eliminate, accelerate, or protect — with the hours each one consumes today.
Do-not-automate boundaries
The decisions that stay human, written down and defensible to a regulator, an auditor, or a board.
Prioritized roadmap
Sequenced by value and feasibility, not by which vendor called last. First pilot clearly identified.
Business case and ROI model
Hours, cycle time, and cost avoided, with the assumptions exposed so your finance team can argue with them.
Executive readout
A working session, not a slide dump. The room leaves aligned on what happens next and who owns it.

How it runs

Four weeks, in the open.

No black box. You see the map take shape as it is built, and you correct me while it is cheap to correct.

Week 1

Scope and access

We pick one operational area narrow enough to finish and consequential enough to matter — a claims desk, a support organization, a field-ops dispatch function, a proposal pipeline. I meet the executive sponsor, agree what success looks like, and get on calendars.

Weeks 1–2

Interviews and observation

Ten to fifteen conversations spanning the people who set the targets, the people who manage the queue, and the people who actually do the work. Then I watch the work happen. The gap between those two things is usually where the opportunity is.

  • Executives: what the function is supposed to produce, and what it costs
  • Managers: where the queue backs up and why
  • Frontline staff: what they actually do all day, including what they have stopped reporting
Week 3

Mapping and opportunity analysis

The current-state map gets built and validated with the people who described it. Then each task is classified — eliminate, accelerate, protect — and sized in hours. This is the week the conversation stops being about tools and starts being about work.

Week 4

Roadmap, business case, readout

Sequencing, the business case, the governance boundaries, and the first recommended pilot. Delivered as a working session with the sponsor and their leadership, so decisions get made in the room rather than deferred to a follow-up.

Fit

When this is the right engagement.

An assessment is worth running when there is real operational weight behind the question and someone with authority waiting on the answer.

Good fitA defined function with expensive labor, heavy documentation, and a leader who owns the P&L for it.
Good fitA stalled or disappointing AI pilot that nobody has diagnosed properly.
Good fitBoard pressure to produce an AI strategy, with no method for producing one.
Poor fitA search for validation of a tool that has already been purchased and politically committed to.
Poor fit"Assess the whole company." Scope that broad produces a document, not a decision.

Terms

Fixed fee. Fixed scope.

The assessment is priced as a fixed fee scaled to the size and complexity of the function being examined — not billed hourly, and not extended by discovery. If the scope changes materially, we agree that before the work continues, not after.

The assessment stands alone. There is no obligation to continue into pilot design or orchestration, and the roadmap is written so that another firm — or your own team — could execute it without me.

Next step

Tell me about the function.

Which team, what it produces, and what makes you think the hours are going somewhere they should not. A short call is enough to tell whether an assessment is the right instrument.