Business Direction
Name the problem before you name the tool
Companies that start from a problem finish AI projects. Companies that start from a tool rarely do.
By Paul Engerman and Tracy Engerman ·
A leadership team hears that competitors are using AI and asks for a plan. The plan is a list of tools. Six months later nobody can say what changed.
What sub-score 2.1 measures
Strategic intent and use cases asks whether leadership has named specific problems, such as quoting time, invoice matching, or intake triage, and whether each has an owner.
A useful test
Say the problem in one sentence with a number in it. “We spend about forty hours a month re-keying purchase orders.” If the sentence has no number, keep working on it.
The fix
A short use-case workshop turns a wish into a ranked list of two or three problems worth solving first, each with an owner and a measure.