Stage 3 of 6 · T
Target: Choosing the battlefield
Prioritise use cases connected to measurable, strategic business outcomes, chosen on business impact, line of sight to results, feasibility, risk, and learning value, not novelty. A target is only meaningful when its metric, owner, expected benefit, and validation plan are explicit.
- Managerial question
- Where does AI connect to a business outcome worth owning?
- Related engagement
- Prototype Sprint
The diagnostic question
For your top candidate, can you name the metric, the owner, the expected benefit, and the validation method, without a meeting?
Target runs in weeks five and six of the 90-Day AI-Native Programme, and it is the gate at the top of a Prototype Sprint. If a value map cannot be completed, we stop, and that is a legitimate outcome.
Artefacts this stage produces
- The three gates
- Strategic consequence, measurability, feasibility, applied in that order.
- The value map
- The metric that will change, the named executive who owns it, the expected benefit, the validation method.
Done properly
- A long list is cut hard through three gates: strategic consequence, measurability, feasibility.
- The shortlist is one or two items. A shortlist of eight has been transcribed, not triaged.
- A value map exists for the top candidate before any build conversation starts.
- The baseline number is written down before the target number.
Commonly faked
- A prioritisation matrix where every candidate lands in the top-right quadrant.
- Impact estimated as a percentage with no baseline behind it.
- A use case chosen because a platform demo made it look easy.
- Ownership assigned to whoever attended the workshop.
Audit checklist
Take these into your next leadership meeting
If the room cannot answer these without preparation, this stage has not been completed.
- 01What is the metric, stated as a number with a unit and a period?
- 02What is the current value of that metric, measured, not estimated?
- 03Which single executive is accountable for moving it?
- 04What is the expected benefit, in money or in time?
- 05How exactly will the change be validated, and by whom?
Failure modes
How this stage goes wrong
- Choosing the use case with the best demo instead of the best line of sight.
- Running a portfolio of ten pilots because none of them could be cut.
- Targeting a metric nobody in the room controls.
Next step
Run Target with us
Target runs in weeks five and six of the 90-Day AI-Native Programme, and it is the gate at the top of a Prototype Sprint. If a value map cannot be completed, we stop, and that is a legitimate outcome.