What starts the work?
Name the event and channel: a completed enquiry form, a labelled inbox message, or an approved meeting note. Decide which messages are outside the workflow.
The better brief guide
Before a tool,
a clear brief.
A useful AI workflow starts with six plain-language decisions. Use this guide to describe one process, find the gaps and prepare for a practical discovery conversation.
What makes a good AI workflow brief?
A defined trigger, approved information, a useful output, a human owner, a review point and a plan for exceptions. If those are unclear, the first task is understanding the process.
A working example
“Can you
send a proposal?”
That request is a beginning. The brief needs enough detail to establish what a draft can prepare and what still requires a conversation.
For a boutique project business, the goal might be: turn a new enquiry into an internal scope outline for a team member to review. That is a smaller, clearer task than “automate sales”.
This is an illustrative scenario, not a client case study.
What can the system use?
List the fields and documents it needs. Use current, approved templates. Identify personal information, confidential client material and anything that must stay out.
What should exist at the end?
Describe something inspectable: a draft brief with source links, a missing-information list or an unassigned project checklist. Be specific about its format and location.
Who is responsible?
Name a role that can resolve questions and maintain the source material. A workflow that belongs to “everyone” can leave exceptions with no one.
What must a person check?
Place review before a consequential action. For proposals, this includes the scope, assumptions, delivery commitments and terms. Make approval visible and recordable.
When should the work stop?
Define incomplete, unusual and sensitive cases. Give the system a holding place and the reviewer a clear next action. Test these cases alongside routine examples.
Your discovery checklist
What can you
already name?
Tick the decisions you can explain today. The summary highlights what to work through next; it is not a readiness score.
Your selections stay on this page. They are not submitted or saved by this page. Use Reset to clear the checklist.
Your next conversation
Start with the trigger: what happens immediately before someone begins this task?
Bring useful evidence
Show the process.
Protect the details.
Bring a fictional or redacted example, an approved template, the current handoff steps and the questions your team has to chase.
Avoid sending client records, passwords or sensitive information in an initial enquiry. First agree what information is required and how it will be handled.
A clearer starting point