What happens once you know what's worth doing
This is the detail behind the Gameplan: how the three phases actually run, what changes depending on where you start, and what happens after you decide. If you haven't read the Gameplan yet, start there. It explains what the engagement is and what it costs.
Three phases, and what each one asks of you.
Understand
I interview the people doing the work and the leaders setting the direction, map the processes, and inventory the systems.
What it asks of you
A handful of interviews with the people doing the work and the leaders setting direction, and a list of the systems you run on. A few hours of your team’s time in total, spread over the phase.
What lands
Process maps, a systems inventory, and an honest view of where time and value leak.
Analyse
Every opportunity ranked by value, risk, and how your people would interact with it. Three paths forward, priced and sequenced, with a recommendation.
What it asks of you
Almost nothing. A short check-in partway through, so the ranking reflects reality rather than my read of it.
What lands
The Analyse report: written for a decision, not a bookshelf. Short enough to read, specific enough to act on.
Decide
We walk through the findings and you decide: proceed, adjust, or pause. A real exit, stated up front.
What it asks of you
Your decision-makers in one room, once.
What lands
The decision. Proceed, adjust, or pause. If you proceed, your first AI build goes live and is handed over as part of the engagement.
The engagement is the same. It flexes to your situation.
Businesses arrive at different levels of AI maturity, and where you start determines where the effort goes.
Make the operation visible first
Where most service businesses are. Use is individual and ad hoc, and processes live in people’s heads. The mix leans toward capture: documenting how work actually happens, finding where time and value leak, and building a commercial view of where AI pays.
Redesign the processes that carry the load
Some experimentation has happened and the appetite is real. This is the heart of most engagements: rebuilding the highest-load processes around AI, connecting the tools, and bringing your people along so the change holds. The result should be your team operating noticeably more efficiently.
Tune what you have built
AI is in the core workflows and the question is no longer whether but how well. The mix shifts to measurement and refinement: quality, consistency, and cost. Shorter, sharper work.
I work in your stack, not mine.
The right platform depends on your environment, your team's comfort level, and what you're trying to build.
Claude (Anthropic)
Including custom MCP server builds for teams building on Claude
Autohive
NZ-built agentic platform, strong for workflow automation without infrastructure overhead
Microsoft Copilot Studio
For organisations already in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem
Gemini & Google Workspace AI
For teams on Google’s stack
Direct API
For bespoke builds where off-the-shelf platforms don’t fit the requirement
Disclosure: I am a referral ambassador with Autohive. Any commission from referrals is passed directly to clients who sign up through me.
You own everything, whichever way you decide.
Your first AI build is part of the Gameplan: live, in use and handed over before the engagement ends, with the documentation to run it without me. If you pause at Decide, you keep the maps, the ranked list and the plan.
If you want help delivering the rest of the path you chose, implementation support is scoped after Decide, typically ~$4,000–$10,000+ over ~3–6 weeks depending on the path. Some businesses run with the plan themselves. Both are fine.
Fifteen minutes to work out if this fits.
A short call to see whether your business is a fit. You get a free AI readiness assessment either way.
- Fixed price, agreed before we start. No hourly creep.
- Half invoiced at the start, half on delivery.
- You decide at the end: proceed, adjust, or pause.