Workflow Design

If every AI problem in your organization sounds unique, your diagnosis is still too shallow. Go one level down and the same five structures keep reappearing. Naming the category is what turns chaos into a plan.

When an AI program feels off but no one can say why, the instinct is to launch another initiative. The faster move is to read the signals you already have. Here are seven, and the structural gap each one points to.

The AI complaint that gets airtime is the one attached to the most senior frustrated person, not the one attached to the most customer value. Volume and leverage are different signals. Good diagnosis separates them before anyone picks a fix.

Teams do not route around approved AI tools because they hate policy. They do it because the workflow stopped serving the work. Treat shadow AI as a fit symptom and the workaround becomes a map to the friction your process never solved.