Bring one messy process: how to prepare for an AI workshop

Do not bring a tool question

“What can we do with AI?” is a reasonable question, but it is too broad to produce a useful workshop outcome. It often leads to a long list of ideas and no shared decision about what to try.

Bring a work question instead. Something that happens often enough to be irritating, visible enough to test, and small enough to improve within a few weeks.

What a good process looks like

Good workshop material includes customer enquiries that need a first response, meeting notes that become action lists, recurring content briefs, qualification calls, standard reports, appointment requests, or repeated internal questions.

Avoid starting with your most complex process. It may be important, but it will have too many dependencies for a first test. Start with the bit that makes people say, “We do this every week and nobody enjoys it.”

Bring real examples, safely

Bring three to five representative examples of the task. Remove confidential details if needed. The point is to see the range of inputs, the awkward exceptions, and the quality a team expects from an output.

Also bring the current template, checklist, or email if one exists. AI works better when it has a clear job and examples of what good looks like.

Decide who needs to be in the room

Include the person who does the work, the person who understands the customer impact, and the person who can approve a small test afterwards. A workshop with only senior decision-makers can generate ideas. A workshop with only operators can generate useful detail. You need both for a change to survive.

Define a useful outcome before the day

Aim for one of these outcomes: a tested prompt, a drafted workflow, a ranked list of opportunities, or a use case you decide not to pursue. Each is more valuable than a general promise to become AI-ready.

Send the group one short brief in advance: the process, how often it happens, what currently goes wrong, and what a better outcome would mean. That ten minutes of preparation can save an hour of vague conversation.

Next step: Ask each participant to bring one example of repeated work and nominate the owner who will test the best idea after the workshop.