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First Workflow Selection Rubric

A rubric for choosing the first AI workflow without chasing the loudest idea or most exciting demo.

Direct Answer

The best first workflow is frequent, valuable, easy to review, low enough risk to test safely, and close to a bottleneck the business already feels.

How to use this

  • Step 1: Write down every candidate workflow in one sentence.
  • Step 2: Remove ideas that are really broad goals, tools, or departments.
  • Step 3: Score frequency, value, evidence, reviewability, risk, and time to value.
  • Step 4: Choose a first workflow that is useful, boring, and reviewable.
  • Step 5: Create a backlog for the exciting ideas that need better evidence or ownership.

Selection rubric

  • Frequency: Does the workflow happen weekly or more often?
  • Value: Would improvement reduce delay, missed revenue, rework, customer friction, or owner time?
  • Reviewability: Can a human owner judge the output quickly?
  • Evidence: Does the source material already exist?
  • Risk: Can the first version stay away from final decisions, legal exposure, and customer commitments?
  • Time to value: Can the first useful version be tested in 30 days?

Worksheet prompts

  • Good first workflow: Frequent, evidence-rich, reviewable, close to a bottleneck, and valuable enough to measure.
  • Weak first workflow: Rare, political, data-poor, high-risk, or dependent on a large system migration.
  • Best early AI role: Prepare work for a human owner: summarize, classify, compare, check, draft, route, or flag.
  • Worst early AI role: Final decision-maker for pricing, legal language, customer promises, account ownership, or sensitive data actions.
  • Selection meeting output: One selected workflow, one owner, one baseline metric, and one reason the next two workflows are not first.
  • Decision rule: If two workflows tie, choose the one with cleaner evidence and lower customer impact.

What most teams choose instead

Teams often choose the most visible AI demo. That usually creates excitement, not operating value. A first workflow should be boring enough to run and important enough to matter.

ADA's default recommendation

Start with a workflow where AI prepares work for review: lead routing, proposal checks, onboarding missing-item review, reporting briefs, or support escalation summaries.

What should be parked

Park workflows that require final judgment, sensitive data, legal approval, pricing decisions, or customer-facing promises before the review process exists.

Quality bar

Where This Helps

Research basis

  • NIST AI RMF Playbook: Supports mapping intended use, context, measurement, and risk management before rollout.
  • ISO/IEC 42001: Frames AI as a management system with policies, objectives, processes, and continuous improvement.
  • OECD AI Principles: Supports oversight and safeguards appropriate to the business context.

Related Resources

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