Stage 4 of 6 · I
Integrate: Rewriting workflows and decision rights
Redesign workflows so people, technology, and AI work as a unified system. AI should not be added on top of broken processes. Approval, override, escalation, and accountability must be written into the workflow as the risk architecture, not left to individual judgement.
- Managerial question
- How does the work itself need to change?
- Related engagement
- First Workflow Build
The diagnostic question
Name the person who can Approve, the person who can Override, and the person who receives an Escalation, for this specific workflow, not for AI in general.
Integrate is the front half of a First Workflow Build. Nothing is written until the redesigned workflow and its decision rights are signed.
Artefacts this stage produces
- The before-and-after workflow map
- Both states on one page, with the checkpoint and exception path explicit.
- The decision-rights entry
- Approve, Override, Escalate, by name, for this workflow.
Done properly
- The process is mapped end to end: trigger, input, human action, proposed AI action, checkpoint, exception path.
- Approve, Override, and Escalate each carry a person's name for this workflow.
- The exception path is designed first, because that is where the risk lives.
- The integration route, native or standalone, is a decision with a stated cost, not a default.
Commonly faked
- An AI step inserted into a diagram nobody has validated with the people who do the work.
- A governance policy that names roles at company level and nobody at workflow level.
- Human in the loop stated as a principle with no checkpoint in the system.
- An integration chosen because it was the fastest to demonstrate.
Audit checklist
Take these into your next leadership meeting
If the room cannot answer these without preparation, this stage has not been completed.
- 01Who does this work today, and have they seen the redesigned flow?
- 02What happens when the model is wrong and nobody notices for a week?
- 03Which system of record holds the truth after the change?
- 04Are permissions inherited from the system of record, or reimplemented?
- 05What is logged, for how long, and who can read the log?
Failure modes
How this stage goes wrong
- Automating the fast part of a process and leaving the queue in place.
- Designing for the clean case and discovering the exception path in production.
- Inheriting a broken process because redesign was politically expensive.
Next step
Run Integrate with us
Integrate is the front half of a First Workflow Build. Nothing is written until the redesigned workflow and its decision rights are signed.