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Hands-on AI Playbook

Step 1: Analyze Workflows for AI Opportunity

Platforms: claude openai gemini m365-copilot

What This Is

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A structured audit that helps you find where AI fits in your work. The analysis supports two lenses: Individual (workflows you personally perform) and Organizational (value chain processes that deliver on business objectives). The AI scans what it already knows about you, asks which lens to use, interviews you with lens-specific questions, then analyzes the results to surface opportunities you’d miss on your own.

What you’ll doWalk through a guided conversation covering your role, tasks, and pain points
What you’ll getA prioritized report of AI opportunities classified by autonomy (Deterministic, Guided, Autonomous) and involvement (Augmented, Automated) — with concrete next steps for each
Time~20–30 minutes for the full conversation

Why This Matters

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Most people adopt AI by reacting to problems — they reach for ChatGPT when they’re stuck on an email or ask Claude to summarize a document. That’s useful, but it misses the bigger picture.

A proactive audit of your workflows can reveal opportunities you’d never notice in the moment: repetitive tasks that could run on autopilot, decisions that would benefit from an AI collaborator, and multi-step processes that could be orchestrated end-to-end.

This step guides an AI through a structured analysis of your work — from either an individual perspective (your personal tasks and pain points) or an organizational perspective (your business’s value chain and strategic processes) — and produces a classified report of opportunities along two dimensions:

  • Autonomy — How much decision-making does the AI have? Deterministic (follows fixed rules), Guided (makes bounded decisions), or Autonomous (plans and adapts independently)
  • Human Involvement — Is a human in the loop during execution? Augmented (human reviews and steers) or Automated (AI runs solo)

How to Use This

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This step is facilitated by the analyze Business-First AI Framework Skill. How you get it depends on your platform — see Get the Skills for installation instructions.

Start with this prompt:

I'd like to analyze my workflows for AI opportunities. Help me audit
what I do and identify where AI could help.

The skill runs a structured audit and produces a categorized opportunity report.

What to Expect

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Here’s what typically happens:

  1. The AI reviews what it knows about you and presents a summary. Correct anything that’s wrong and fill in gaps.
  2. The AI asks which lens to use — Individual (your personal workflows) or Organizational (your business’s value chain processes). If your context makes one obvious, it infers and confirms.
  3. The AI asks you a series of lens-specific questions. Answer as specifically as you can — concrete examples produce better recommendations than general descriptions.
  4. You receive a structured report with a summary table and detailed cards for each opportunity, grouped by category.
  5. You pick your top workflow candidates, and the AI formats a Workflow Candidate Summary with structured metadata — including trigger, deliverable, and lens — ready for the Deconstruct step.
  6. The AI offers to explore the other lens for a more complete picture. You can accept or move on.

Most people discover 5–15 opportunities across different autonomy levels. Pick three to start with.

How to Prioritize

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  • Start with Deterministic + Augmented if you’re new to AI — lowest risk, easiest to try
  • Move to Deterministic + Automated once you trust the process — the time savings compound quickly
  • Explore Guided and Autonomous when you’re ready for more AI decision-making

What Analyze Produces

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The AI Opportunity Report (ai-opportunity-report.md) captures:

  • Report header — your name, role, date, opportunity count, and top recommendation
  • Summary table — every opportunity listed with its autonomy level, involvement mode, and impact level
  • Top recommendations — the 3 highest-priority opportunities with one-sentence rationales
  • Detailed opportunity cards — grouped by autonomy level (Deterministic → Guided → Autonomous), each with: why it’s a good candidate, current pain point, how AI helps, and a practical first step
  • Workflow Candidate Summary — structured metadata for the workflows you choose to pursue: name, description, trigger, deliverable, autonomy, involvement, pain point, AI opportunity, frequency, priority, reasoning, and lens. Organizational-lens candidates also include business objective, stakeholders, and success metrics.

The Workflow Candidate Summary is the input for Deconstruct Workflows (Step 2) — the trigger and deliverable fields map directly to the scope check that starts the deconstruction.

See three complete example reports to get a feel for the format and level of detail.

Tips for Better Results

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  • Use a tool with memory or projects enabled. The richer the AI’s context about your actual work, the more specific and useful the recommendations will be.
  • Be concrete when answering questions. “I spend 30 minutes every Monday formatting a status report from three Jira boards” is far more useful than “I do reporting.”
  • Run it again in a few weeks. As you have more conversations and the AI learns more about your work, re-running this prompt will surface new opportunities.
  • Share the output with your team. Some of the best opportunities come from workflows that span multiple people — your colleagues may see possibilities you don’t. The organizational lens is especially useful for this.
  • Try both lenses. The individual lens surfaces your personal pain points; the organizational lens surfaces value chain opportunities that may have higher strategic impact. The skill offers to run both.
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