The three lanes of AI decision-making

A practical decision map, so leaders, specialists and teams know what they own.

Hi there,

Implementation can be delegated, but we still need leaders to care about the judgement they exercise. The point of all this is achieving real business outcomes.

One thing common to technology projects the world over is the tendency for leaders to ask technical people questions that should already have an answer from the business itself.

This sometimes manifests in technology projects being designed, approved and implemented as ends in themselves. There is no clear link to the overarching business strategy or what the future operating model needs to be. Sometimes there isn’t even a clear people strategy. No thought is given to change management.

There is a difference between a trusted advisor making a recommendation to you, making a decision for you, and executing the decision for you. When we engage external help, it is because we need to go from a state that we are not happy with to one where we have achieved our goal.

There are three lanes you might want to think about - the leadership lane, the specialist lane, and the team lane.

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PS: I’m also going live on Substack with Cory Blumenfeld at 1800 EDT 23 Jul / 0800 24 Jul AEST to talk about human in the loop in the AI era.

If you have your own AI change problem you’re stuck with, I have limited availability over the next 90 days to work with a small number of clients to help them unblock their AI initiative. DM me on Substack or reply to this email if that’s something you’re interested in.

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In the next section, paid subscribers can access a decision map to help stop decisions bouncing between governance forums and overburdening business owners and leaders with decisions relating to AI initiatives.