Should we add AI or fix the stuck job first?

Add AI or fix the stuck job first? Fix the job. “AI transformation” without a named job is a subscription. The hours you want back live in a workaround, a sheet, or eight questions you already paste into Instagram. Publish those. Put the workflow in software you can keep. Then, if the hours are still real, put a clerk on that job with a person on money and sends.

What “fix the job” means this month

Write the FAQ or SOP in your own words. Put it on a page people can find. Booking or checkout if that is the leak. A queue if two people cannot edit the same sheet. None of that needs a model. All of it makes a model less likely to lie.

When AI comes second — on purpose

The source of truth is yours. A person can stop it. You can measure reopen rate or hours returned — not “conversations closed.” If those are missing, you are buying a demo. We will say no.

How I judge whether the idea is real

I ask three questions on the first call. What job did a person do last week that you want a machine to draft? Who checks the output before a customer sees it? What happens on Friday if we turn the feature off? If you cannot answer those, we are not ready to write a statement of work. We are ready to write the FAQ or the SOP first — and that is often the actual project.

I would rather decline a fashionable chatbot than ship something that lies about hours, stock, refunds or a diagnosis. The invoice has my company’s name on it. That is why the no’s are part of the work.

What you should have in writing before you pay anyone

The job in one sentence. The data the model may see. The human who confirms. The metric you will look at in 30 days. The kill switch. The legal name of the vendor. USD price and when the card is charged. Who owns the repo. If a vendor cannot put those on one page, you are buying a demo.

• Nothing is billed by us before you approve a written scope.
• Typical project billing is 50% to start and 50% on delivery, through Stripe.
• Code, design and prompts we write for you transfer on final payment.

This week

1. 01

   Name the job in one line

   Who does what, where it waits. If you cannot, you are not ready for a model.

2. 02

   Publish the truth you already type

   FAQ, policy, hours, the sheet’s real columns. A model with no source invents the company.

3. 03

   Put the workflow in software you can keep

   Booking, queue, portal. Then measure hours. Then, maybe, a clerk with a lock.

Questions

Should we add AI or fix the stuck job first?

Fix the job. Publish the answers you already type. Put the workflow in software you can keep. Then, if the hours are still real, put a clerk on that job with a kill switch. “AI transformation” without a named job is a subscription.