The blueprint, step by step.
So many options make it easy to move and groove. A method builds a solid foundation, so what you create actually lasts.
The blueprint at a glance
Each step, up close
Get ready for what’s next
Even if your time isn’t full, AI opens room to do far more. Rethink how your time is spent, your true talents, and your potential, not just your capacity. Then look at everything that pours in, and how long it takes.
What the water represents
- Emails
- Ad hoc requests
- Fire drills
- Teams messages
- Text messages
- To-dos
- Upcoming meetings
Name the pain points
- What spills over?
- What waits too long?
- What wears people down?
- What takes the longest for the least value?
How to do it
- Notice everything coming in: emails, requests, fire drills, messages, to-dos, meetings.
- Write down how long each kind takes in a normal week. That is the starting baseline.
- Name the pain points: what spills over, what waits too long, what wears people down.
- Pick the one or two that hurt most to start with.
See where everything is SIPOC
Who supplies, what comes in, the work, what goes out, who receives it. One page that shows where the work comes from, what happens to it, and who it is for.Reference: SIPOC stands for Suppliers, Inputs, Process, Outputs, Customers.
- Customers with requests
- The team
- Partners and vendors
- Tools and data sources
- AI bots
- Requests and questions
- Email and messages
- Calendar and deadlines
- Documents and data
- Ideas and feedback
- Hear the need
- Shape it
- Make it
- Check it
- Deliver it
- Finished work
- Answers and decisions
- Updates and reports
- New ideas tried
- Clients
- The team
- Leaders and partners
- Community
- My future self
How to do it
- List every customer (who receives the work) and every supplier (who feeds it).
- List every input that arrives: requests, messages, data, ideas. Know what each one is.
- Sketch the work in 5 to 7 big steps, and the outputs each customer gets.
- Ask each customer what would wow them, and turn it into 2 or 3 measures.
Zoom in on one process IPO
In, work, out: zoom in on the one process that matters most. Example: turning a customer request into finished work.Reference: IPO stands for Input, Process, Output.
Input
- The request and its goal
- Past examples of great work
- The knowledge base
- Deadline and who it’s for
Process
- Understand what they really need
- Bot drafts from the knowledge base
- A specialist checks it before it goes out
- Polish and send
Output
- Delivered work the customer can use
- A note added to the knowledge base
- The customer’s reaction, written down
How to do it
- Pick the one process that matters most to customers and hurts most today.
- Write its inputs: what has to be on hand before it starts.
- Write its steps and its outputs, and who receives each output.
Decide what to do
Take the output of the zoom-in step IPO and break it into three questions: to deliver work the customer can use, what do we need to know, what do we need to do, and who will do it?
Filter inputs down to what matters
Everything else goes to the archive, a later list, or a bot.
Know
Organize the information.
- How-we-do-it notes
- Examples and customer notes
- Decisions and why
- In plain text AI can read
Do
Identify your routines.
- The repeatable actions the bots will run
- Connectors to email, calendar, docs, notes and sheets
Who
Human or bot.
- Where a human stays in the loop
- Where specialists, people or bots, come in
How to do it
- Know: organize the information. Put how-we-do-it notes, examples, customer notes and decisions in plain text AI can read.
- Do: identify your routines. List the repeatable actions the bots will run, and set up connectors to the tools where the work lives.
- Who: human or bot. Decide where a human stays in the loop and where specialists come in.
- Filter what comes in so only meaningful inputs get through: tied to a customer on the where-everything-is-today map SIPOC, or to the dream.
Build the team RACI
The mixed team of humans and bots comes together and works as one team.
Clear roles
- People: decide, approve, and take the relationships and judgment calls
- Bots: sort, draft, check, log, and run the routines
- Specialists, people or bots: the deep work. Right now we set the system up to handle standard work. Once a specialist is trained and has had enough cycles of learning, it can act on its own on ad hoc work too.
Level up over time
- Look at what went well and what bounced back
- Retrain a bot or update what it knows
- Retire what isn’t pulling its weight
- Add a member when the work grows
Every output held to a specialist’s bar Skills Matrix
Fast and broad, like a supercomputer. Needs checking.
Facts verified, sources shown.
In our voice and format, for this customer.
What a seasoned expert would sign their name to.
Answers the next question before it’s asked.
Set routines Standard Work
Decide what happens every hour, day, week, month, and quarter, and who does it.
Hourly
Decide what the bots check every hour, like new requests and anything urgent.
Daily
Decide what the bots run each morning, and when people check in.
Weekly
Decide when the board gets reviewed and the knowledge base gets updated.
Monthly
Decide when customers get asked and the measures get pulled.
Quarterly
Decide when results get held up to the baseline and the dream.
How to do it
- Set the hourly, daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly routines for the team, humans and bots.
- Write the key work step by step: who does each step, person or bot, and what done looks like.
Measure progress Control Tower
Check how the work is going and whether the transformation is real: first the measures against the baseline, then the board.
How we measure the transformation
Five measures, each read three ways: where we started, where we are, where we’re headed. Bars show the shape, not real numbers yet.
Time given back
Hours a week moved from routine to people, dreams and invention.
Right the first time
Share of outputs that pass the specialist bar with no redo.
Customer wow
What customers say, and whether they come back and refer others.
New things invented
Things we do now that weren’t possible before.
Work that runs itself
Share of the work with written steps, readable knowledge and a bot.
How to do it
- Perform the work, improve the team, and wow the customers, on the routines you set.
- Show every piece of work on one board: waiting, doing, checking, delivered.
- Measure against the starting baseline: time given back, right the first time, customer wow, new things invented.
- Quarterly: hold the measures up to the baseline and the dream, then refresh both.