← The Compass reference

Author's note

Author's note

You have a business to run, and now you're being told to do something with AI. You may see possibilities without knowing where to begin. That's a reasonable place to start this book. You don't need to arrive with a problem already selected, a project approved, or a tool you want to buy.

We begin by understanding how your company works. Where does it create value? What do people have to work around to get the job done? What could be better for customers or for the team serving them? Looking across those questions usually gives us several opportunities to consider. Then we can compare them and decide which deserves attention now, which needs more investigation, and which can wait.

I can help frame that thinking, ask useful questions, and challenge an assumption that deserves another look. You and the people doing the work bring the knowledge of the business. You develop the answers and own the choices that follow.

AI earns a place when it can improve something that matters, at a cost and risk you can defend, with a change your people can sustain. That might call for a sophisticated system. It might call for a modest tool used by three people. You may also find that an ordinary process improvement is enough, or that this is a poor time to take on anything else.

The benefit could be room to serve more customers, time back for your team, or less spending on work that isn't helping. We will need evidence before treating any of those possibilities as a result. Clarity helps us get there because it makes the next decision more useful.

I haven't written a catalog of tools or a prediction about which model, vendor, or interface will win. Those answers would begin aging while you read them. I've written a way to work through the choices: map the business, discover and compare opportunities, choose a manageable next step, and learn from what happens. Sometimes that means stopping. Sometimes it gives you a reason to continue, invest, or make a capability dependable enough for wider use.

You can use the whole method and the working pages on your own. If you choose to work with me, the value is in the questions, judgment, and conversation we bring to your situation. You remain responsible for the decisions in your business. Advisory work and implementation are separate scopes.