So you want to create an AI strategy?
Strategy is an often misunderstood concept in my experience. I’ve misunderstood it myself. Think of how many times you’ve heard someone say, “We need to be strategic about this.” Sometimes, we mean we want to be smart. Sometimes, we mean we want to take our time and be really careful.
Strategy is the product of the choices we make in pursuing something we want.
Strategy can involve very careful, thoughtful, and intelligent work, but that isn’t what makes it strategy. Strategy is about choosing.
Kellan and I both play golf regularly. An example here is that we could face a choice on a particular hole to use a driver (the “hit ball really far” club) or an iron (the “hit ball less far with more control” club) for the first shot.
A good drive could set up a great score. A bad one could land in the lake. The point is that we have to choose our strategy. We can’t hit both clubs.
Now, in business, there are certainly moments where you can and will try different things. We can run experiments and determine what works. Still, we all face resourcing constraints that require choices.
AI strategy is built through a simple set of choices.
| ■ | What are we going to try (and not try)? |
| ■ | What are we going to keep doing (and stop doing)? |
In making those choices, I think there are three tasks for leaders.
| ■ | Learning. Understand how to determine if something is an AI-shaped problem. |
| ■ | Deciding. Identify what needs to get better and match AI-shaped problems to applications for AI. |
| ■ | Communicating. Give everyone in your organization the opportunity to understand what you’re doing (or not doing) and why. |
We expanded on our thinking here in this week’s episode of The Fizz.
We help companies at all stages of their AI transformation with their AI strategy. If you’re interested in learning more, just reply to this email.
Justin
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