Operations
Advanced
16 min
Department AI playbooks — rolling the system out without losing control
The problem
You mandate AI usage across five departments. Three months later: sales has built something useful, finance has done nothing because they were waiting for guidance, HR has been pasting employee data into a consumer tier, and operations bought a tool nobody uses. There was no standard about what was fixed and what was local.
The workflow
1Write the central four
2Pick the first department
3Build their playbook
4Run for a month
5Fix what broke
6Roll to the second
7Measure work outcomes
★Review quarterly
What you need
Business: kitchenware D2C, ₹1.4 crore, 8 people across sales, operations, customer service, finance (part-time) and marketing. Data: customer service handles customer names, addresses, phones.
The tool
One page, from leadership
The prompt
Subscribers. The full prompt is part of the SMEMinds AI Playbook. See plans.
What comes back
1. THE CENTRAL FOUR (one page) Data rules: customer names, addresses, phone numbers and order details never go into a consumer tier.
Verify before you use it
Human review required. Check every line below before this leaves your screen.
- The de-duplication incident is the reason the data rules exist. Reference it explicitly when you circulate them — a rule with a story behind it gets followed.
- Customer service going fourth will be unpopular. The reasoning is sound and should be explained rather than imposed.
- Keep the central four to one page. If it grows, you are drifting towards paralysis.
- Set the success measures per department before starting, not after.