The method
WORKSHIFT-AI
Nine moves that take a team from “we should use AI” to redesigned work, a working tool, and a measured number. In order — because each move needs the one before it.
The sequence
The order isn’t arbitrary. You can’t judge what AI should carry until you’ve broken the work apart. You shouldn’t build until you’ve checked the risks and given the AI its context. You can’t assign accountability for something you haven’t built. And the value number only holds if you captured a baseline at the very start.
- 01
Work Decomposition
Break the work into steps: data, decisions, handoffs, judgment.
Kills: The reflex to automate a surface task instead of redesigning the work.
- 02
Opportunity
Sort each step — what a machine carries, what a human owns, what's just a rule.
Kills: The two classic errors: AI where a rule would do, and AI where a human must stay accountable.
- 03
Risk & Readiness
Face the real risks before building.
Kills: The shadow-adoption incident that ends the programme.
- 04
Knowledge & Context
Give the AI what it needs to know.
Kills: “Blame the model” when the real gap is knowledge no one wrote down.
- 05
Solution Prototyping
Build it — from a simple copilot up to a governed agent.
Kills: Permanent dependence on IT.
- 06
Human–AI Operating Design
Decide who's accountable, who verifies, who signs.
Kills: The gap where no one owns a wrong output.
- 07
Impact Measurement
Measure against the baseline you captured at the start.
Kills: The credibility collapse that ends year-two funding.
- 08
Field Implementation
Run it for real.
Kills: The brilliant prototype that never reaches production.
- 09
Transfer & Scale
Make it spread.
Kills: Twenty isolated wins with zero org-wide capability.
Measure late, but baseline early.
Impact is the eighth move, but its baseline has to be captured during the first. Instrument early, measure late. Skip the early baseline and every number you claim later is a guess — and a finance team will dismiss a guess in seconds.
Try the first two moves on your own work.
Decomposition and sorting — W and O — are the moves everything else rests on. Describe a real workflow and I’ll run them with you.
Describe something you actually do, and watch it come apart.