Our leadership team is divided during quarterly planning, with some wanting to invest heavily in custom AI development and others wanting to ignore it entirely. How do we use our V/TO and the Rocks process to align the team on which AI initiatives to pursue?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To resolve this alignment issue, you must run it through the EOS® framework. Stop talking about AI as a separate technology strategy. There is no such thing as an AI project, there are only operations-improvement projects that use machine learning.

Open up your V/TO® and look at your Three-Year Picture. Identify the operational bottlenecks that will prevent you from hitting those long-term goals. If your team is divided, it is because you are chasing shiny objects instead of focusing on what actually drives your business forward. Prioritize use cases that improve operational efficiency, freeing employees from low-value tasks for higher-value strategic work.

Once you identify the single biggest bottleneck, set a clear quarterly Rock to address it. Do not commit to a massive, multi-year software development project. Instead, the Rock should be to run a low-cost, low-code pilot that proves a machine learning application can solve that specific bottleneck within ninety days. By grounding your technology decisions in your V/TO and executing them through the Rocks process, you eliminate the hype and align your entire leadership team on practical, measurable operational improvements.