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AI Journey Advisory

Strategy and value

From fifteen ideas to three business cases

Most organisations do not lack AI ideas. They lack a fair way to choose between them. A simple, evidence-led funnel turns a long list into decisions leadership can fund.

3 min read

The problem is choice, not ideas

Ask any leadership team for AI opportunities and the list fills quickly: document summarisation, forecasting, customer service, code assistance. The difficulty comes next. Ideas arrive with different levels of detail, different sponsors and different assumptions about cost, so they cannot be compared fairly.

Without a common method, budget tends to follow the most persuasive presenter rather than the best opportunity. The result is a portfolio of pilots that is hard to explain to a board and harder to stop.

Score every idea the same way

Start by capturing up to fifteen candidates in one workbook. Score each on value, meaning the size and certainty of the benefit, and on feasibility, meaning data, process readiness, integration and risk. The scores do not need to be precise. They need to be consistent, with the evidence and assumptions written beside them.

Consistency does two things. It makes the ranking defensible, and it shows where a promising idea is blocked by a fixable gap, such as missing data or an unclear owner.

Exhibit 1A consistent funnel narrows fifteen candidates to three fundable business cases
  1. 15

    Candidate opportunities

    Scored on value and feasibility in one workbook

    then
  2. 5

    Shortlisted use cases

    Assessed in detail: users, workflow, cost, risk

    then
  3. 3

    Charters and business cases

    Scope, value, cost, risks and expected return

Source: AI Journey Advisory, Use-Case Identification and Value service scope.

Go deep on five, decide on three

The top five deserve a closer look: who would use the solution, what the workflow becomes, what it would cost to run and what could go wrong. This is where weak ideas fall away quietly, before anyone has signed a contract.

Three ideas then move to full charters and business cases that set out scope, value, cost, risks and expected return. Three is enough to give leadership a real choice and few enough to resource properly.

What leadership should expect to see

A good funding conversation rests on three documents: the ranked list, the shortlist assessment and the business cases. Each should show its assumptions so that finance, risk and the business can challenge them before money is committed.

If an idea cannot produce a charter with a named owner and a measure of success, it is not ready for funding. That is a useful outcome too.

How we can help

Services that put this into practice

Use-Case Identification and Value

Several AI ideas compete for budget. Rank them and build the business cases.

$4,500

AI Decision Pack

Choose what to fund, validate, defer or stop.

$7,500

AI Roadmap and Operating Model

Priorities exist; ownership and funding do not. Get a 12-month plan.

$5,500

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