Hi there,
A lot of stalled AI projects can be traced back to a hard decision that wasn’t taken.
When you use AI to help audit your operating model, a frontier model today can easily surface decision points that led to the current situation.
Our operating model is the sum of all the decisions taken and not taken since the business was incorporated, big or small.
When I’m working through a complex project with the help of AI agents, as things progress, more and more tough decisions are surfaced.
The direction setting of AI agents when they’re helping us transform a business and the front-loading of decisions where we can is a way to bring the pain forward and avoid rework after billions of tokens are generated.
Decision debt is the accumulated pile of decisions, big and small, that weren’t made either intentionally or unintentionally.
It’s different to tech debt, which is the accumulated impact of less-than-optimal quick wins and operating at pace that can leave technology platforms hard to refactor or improve.
Some firms are really good on governance and code quality. Others are under so much pressure they just solve problems as they arise with less focus on precision.
Over time, all of this adds up to a stack of decisions - some one-way gate, some reversible - that require thinking and reflection time at leadership level and hard trade-offs to be both understood and made.
When I look at stalled AI projects and even declining businesses, a preference for avoiding hard decisions, as opposed to being realistic about the options faced, is responsible for many businesses losing competitive position.
What this looks like in your business is issue registers not being closed out at a suitable pace and items where an accountable owner is hard to confirm. You really don’t want or need this in normal times, but in the AI era, kicking tough decisions down the road will be terminal for your business.
