Practical resource
Is this workflow ready for an AI decision?
Score one workflow across value, process clarity, data and access, adoption controls, and ownership. The result is a decision aid—not a promise that automation is the answer.
How to score
Give each dimension 0, 1, or 2.
Work through the five dimensions with the people who own and perform the work. Use the lowest honest score when the evidence is incomplete.
Is the cost of the current work visible?
Consider frequency, delay, rework, missed follow-up, quality risk, and the skilled time currently absorbed.
- 0 — The value is unclear or the work is rare.
- 1 — The friction is visible, but not yet baselined.
- 2 — The workflow is frequent and a useful baseline can be measured.
Can the work be described without guessing?
Trace the trigger, inputs, decisions, exceptions, handoffs, systems, and the point at which a person must use judgment.
- 0 — The process changes person to person.
- 1 — The happy path is known, but exceptions are unclear.
- 2 — The workflow and its meaningful exceptions can be mapped.
Can the needed information be used responsibly?
Identify where the data lives, who owns it, what is sensitive, what access is possible, and whether representative examples exist.
- 0 — Access, permissions, or data sensitivity rule out a near-term change.
- 1 — The data path is possible but needs investigation.
- 2 — The data, access owner, and constraints are clear enough to assess.
Can the change have a safe operating boundary?
Decide what may be automated, where human review belongs, what failures matter, and how users can correct or escalate work.
- 0 — The risk or consequence is not understood.
- 1 — Safeguards are plausible but not defined.
- 2 — Review, exception handling, and acceptance criteria can be specified.
Will someone own the outcome after launch?
Name the executive sponsor, process owner, frontline users, technical contact, and the measure that determines whether the change helped.
- 0 — No sponsor, owner, or success measure is available.
- 1 — An owner is likely, but the decision path is incomplete.
- 2 — The sponsor, owner, and first success measure are explicit.
Read the total
Use the score to choose the next conversation.
A high score makes a workflow suitable for deeper assessment. It does not replace technical, security, privacy, or commercial due diligence.
Ready to assess
The workflow has enough value, clarity, and ownership for a focused opportunity assessment. That assessment should still test feasibility and risk before a build is approved.
Clarify before committing
There may be a worthwhile opportunity, but one or two gaps need resolving—often a baseline, process map, access owner, or adoption boundary.
Do not automate this yet
The responsible next step is to improve the process, data, ownership, or measurement first. A tool purchase would add uncertainty rather than remove it.
When the result is promising
Turn the score into a bounded decision.
The AI Opportunity Sprint maps the current state, tests the practical constraints, and recommends whether to implement, buy, defer, or stop.