In yesterday’s Exponential Possibilities, we had the opportunity to take a closer look at the most effective way to implement AI in support of efficiency and elevated outputs from Team members.
Club Futurist, Craig Rispin, shared the tried and tested process he uses with medium to large companies, to integrate AI through the use of ‘micro-wins’ and the positive momentum that can be created by breaking activities and implementation into small steps which are easily achievable.
Firstly he took us through a series of questions to generate a list of opportunities where small tasks could be automated by AI to produce a greater output. The idea being that completing the automation of one of these tasks and then taking time to integrate its use, then moving onto the next, over time produces a series of micro-wins which build confidence, and also provide the basis for an interconnected system where the compounded effect will be much larger in terms of both functionality and ROI.
The key here is akin to the old adage ‘How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time’, in that the micro-wins in most cases are best off being really simple, one-step tasks which may almost seem underwhelming, but are most times going to be achievable without massive input of time or learning involved.
Some examples of the questions utilised to identify the micro-wins are:
Where do you lose leads or follow ups because of manual steps?
What data do you already have that AI could analyze or summarise for insight?
What’s a small but annoying customer request that you could handle automatically?
Craig also reminded us about the concept of the ‘5 Whys’ which were highlighted in the book The Lean Startup by Eric Ries.
The application in this context being that if you take what you think is the problem that needs fixing (which is usually a particular output or lack of output), then ask why is that happening, then take the answer and ask why is that happening, and repeat this five times, it peels back the layers of the process and uncovers what the primary issue is, which when attended to will fix the output issue at the other end as well as the process in between.
This is a great way to bring clarity to what the process gaps or challenges actually are, and ensure that the micro-tasks that you are automating will provide solutions to the challenges you are wanting to overcome in the simplest and most effective way.
