AI Diagnostic Scope: Working Session or Operations Assessment
Before anyone builds anything, someone has to find out what is actually broken. This is what that looks like, in scope and out.
Why there is a diagnostic at all
The expensive failure in this work is not a build that goes wrong. It is a build that goes right, on the wrong problem.
The diagnosis has not changed in thirty-five years of this work. What changed is the build: the fix that used to take months of integration work is now days. That makes getting the diagnosis right worth more than it used to be, not less, because a wrong answer now gets implemented faster.
The working session: one workflow, your team in the room
Half a day to a full day, on site or online, with the people who actually do the work rather than the people who describe it.
What we do: map the workflow as it is genuinely performed, including the workarounds nobody documented. Separate the steps AI can move now from the ones that need a process fix first. Scope and cost one contained build, and say what it will not do.
What you leave with: a clear split between what is ready and what is not, and a scoped, costed first build you can say yes or no to. If you proceed, the session fee comes off the build.
Outside it: the build itself, a written assessment report, and any ongoing support.
The operations assessment: several teams, several systems
When one session cannot reach the bottom of it, the diagnosis becomes its own engagement. This is the one to book when the systems disagree with each other and the people have built careers on carrying the difference by hand.
What we do: stakeholder interviews and process mapping across teams. A systems and data audit covering where data lives, where it stops, and what is filling the gap manually. Opportunities ranked by payback against effort.
What you leave with: a current-state map across systems, data and people. A prioritised opportunity map. A costed, sequenced roadmap you can take to a board or a budget holder.
Outside it: the build, which is scoped separately off the roadmap, and ongoing support.
What we look at
The same four things, at whichever depth the engagement runs.
The work as performed. Not the process diagram. The actual sequence, including the step someone does at home on Sunday because the system locks at five.
The spaces between systems. Where a person is the integration: re-keying, exporting, reconciling two reports that should agree.
The data underneath. Whether what you have is clean enough and structured enough to answer the question you want answered. Often this is the finding.
What has to stay true. Obligations, audit trails, privacy, and who is allowed to see what. Built in from the start, not retrofitted after a build.
What you can do with the result
Take it and build it yourself. Take it to another firm. Take it to nobody and fix the process problem it surfaced, which is a real outcome and sometimes the right one.
There is no auto-enrolment into a build, and the roadmap is yours whether or not we ever work together again. We would rather be the firm that told you the truth once than the firm you could not get rid of.
AI Services by Engagement Stage · How Real Minds AI Compares · How we work
Tell us where it hurts
A free first conversation before any of this. We listen, play it back, and say whether a diagnostic is even the right next step.
Tell us where it hurts