Our leadership team is split on where to allocate our technology budget, with our visionary wanting to build a custom machine learning model and our integrator wanting to focus on basic operational upgrades. How do we use the EOS tools to resolve this friction and prioritize the right projects?

Question

Tyler Smith · Accepted Answer

To resolve this team friction, you must bring this issue to your next weekly Level 10 Meeting™ and use the IDS® process to get to the root of the disagreement. The core conflict is usually a misalignment on how technology should serve your overall business strategy.

Start by looking at your V/TO®. Your technology roadmap must directly align with your three-year picture and your one-year plan. If a custom machine learning model does not directly support a specific goal on your V/TO®, it is a distraction.

Next, reframe the discussion. Never pitch AI or machine learning as a stand-alone initiative. Instead, frame the proposed changes as operations-improvement projects that happen to use machine learning. This changes the conversation from a highly technical debate about algorithms to a practical business discussion about operational efficiency and return on investment.

Evaluate the visionary's proposed machine learning project against your integrator's operational upgrades. Ask which project will do more to free your employees from low-value tasks and increase your capacity for high-value strategic work. By keeping the discussion focused on measurable productivity gains and system-dependent operations, your leadership team can easily identify the right path forward and agree on a clear solution.