Your AI & automation workbook.

A short working session for you and your team, about 30 minutes. Don't just read it, fill it in. By the end you'll have your first project chosen and a plan to run it. Type straight into the boxes and save as a PDF, or print it and write on it.

The model, in brief. The AI is a brilliant brain (clever, occasionally and confidently wrong). On its own it can only talk. Give it a body, senses to see your data, memory of your business, hands to act, and wiring to connect it, and it does real work. The ladder runs from quick wins (table stakes) up through a company memory, bridges where no integration exists, consolidated dashboards, and whole jobs that carry themselves under supervision.

1Where's our time going?

Brain-dump the repetitive jobs your team would happily never do again. Don't filter yet. Quantity first.

The job	Who does it	How often / how long

2Score and pick the first job

Take your strongest candidates from above. Score each from 1 (low) to 5 (high). A great first job scores high on all four.

Candidate job	Repetitive	Frequent	Resented	Low-risk	Total

Our first job is:

3Map your systems and the missing bridges

List the core systems and portals the business runs on. Note which ones talk to each other and which don't. The gaps are where the valuable bespoke work usually hides.

System / portal	Talks to?	Manual work it creates

The bridge that would save the most time:

4Which rung does it need?

For your chosen first job, tick the rung on the ladder it really sits on.

Rung 1: a quick win (drafting, or a connector that already exists) Rung 2: company memory (an assistant that knows our documents) Rung 3: a bridge where no official integration exists Rung 4: a consolidated dashboard (one screen instead of many) Rung 5: work that carries itself end to end, under supervision Why that rung:

5Your first-project brief

Pin down the one project. This is what you'd hand to someone like JDCS to scope.

The job, in one line: The current steps, start to finish: Baseline: how long it takes and how often: What good looks like (the win): Who approves the important output (human in the loop): How we'll measure success:

6Your 90-day plan

One proven win and a team that trusts the approach. That's the whole goal.

Weeks 1 to 2: pick the job, write down the current process, set a baseline. Weeks 3 to 6: build the one thing, with a person approving what matters. Weeks 7 to 10: measure against the baseline, refine, bring the team along. Weeks 11 to 13: bank the win, make it visible, pick the next job.

7Your one-page AI rules

A little governance lets people use AI with confidence instead of guessing. Keep it to these four lines.

Fine to use AI for: Never goes into a public AI tool: Who signs off customer, money or legal outputs: Our chosen tools:

Your AI & automation workbook.

Sent, thanks.