Not a vague discovery phase
- Scope
- One workflow, real examples, named systems, named owners, and a desired business outcome.
- Recommendation
- The assessment includes one primary recommendation, not a menu of equally weighted possibilities.
Workflow Assessment
What you need to decide before a build.
After the free fit call, the next step is usually a paid Workflow Assessment. We inspect one real business process and produce the map, analysis, and recommendation you need to choose the next move.
Start With A Free Call01Purpose
This is the paid first milestone.
The assessment exists to answer a practical question before anyone commits to custom work: what intervention would actually reduce friction in this workflow? Sometimes the answer is an AI agent. Sometimes it is software, an existing product, documentation, a workflow change, a hire, or no action.
02Preparation
Bring reality, not a wish list.
The assessment works best when it starts from actual cases. Abstract requirements tend to hide the awkward parts. Real examples reveal missing context, review habits, exceptions, handoffs, and the judgment calls that decide whether automation is appropriate.
Customer homework
- Choose one workflow
- Gather 3-5 real examples
- Include supporting artifacts
- Identify the people involved
- Name the systems involved
- Describe the desired business outcome
03Deliverables
What you get back.
Workflow map
A plain-language view of the people, systems, inputs, outputs, decision points, and failure modes.
Bottleneck analysis
An explanation of what actually limits performance: waiting, context switching, poor documentation, missing information, approvals, duplicated effort, or manual repetition.
Intervention recommendation
One primary recommendation: agent, conventional software, existing product, workflow change, documentation, hiring, more data, or no action.
Fixed-scope proposal
Included only when custom work is justified, with objective, scope, deliverables, exclusions, timeline, and price.
04Possible Answers
An agent is one possible answer.
The point of the assessment is not to force every problem into an AI shape. It is to identify the highest-leverage next step.
Recommendation may be
- Build an AI agent
- Build conventional software
- Buy an existing product
- Change the workflow
- Improve documentation
- Hire differently
- Do nothing for now
05Build Credit
If we build, the assessment carries forward.
If the recommendation is custom work and the build begins within 30 days, the assessment fee is credited toward the build. If the recommendation points somewhere else, you still have a workflow map, bottleneck analysis, and decision brief you can use internally or take to another builder.Typical build size