AI Problem Framing

The right AI use cases. Decided in a day.

Not a brainstorm. Not a strategy document. A structured process that moves your cross-functional team from scattered AI ideas to one use case — specific enough to hand to engineering, clear enough to defend to leadership.

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THE PROBLEM

Too many AI ideas. No way to decide.

Engineering wants to build what's technically interesting. Business wants what sounds strategic. Product is somewhere in between. By the time anyone commits to something, the problem behind it has never been properly examined — and six months later, nobody can defend why that use case was chosen over the others.

The cost isn't just the failed pilot or stalled adoption. It's the six months of engineering time that went with it — and the credibility you spent defending it.

When you need it

AI Problem Framing is built for the moment before the wrong bet gets made.

Your team has more AI ideas than capacity to pursue them, and no structured way to filter.

Engineering, product, and business are each defining the problem differently— and nobody has resolved it.

Money and time are being spent on pilots that never make it to production  

There's no clear line of sight between your AI efforts and the business goals you're accountable for

What is AI Problem Framing

AI Problem Framing is a one-day structured workshop that connects three things most AI initiatives keep separate — your business strategy, your customers' real problems, and what AI can actually do.

Five stages:

  1. AI Ideas — Every AI idea, mandate, and experiment surfaces into one shared space. Nothing filtered yet.
  2. Business Goals — Each idea gets connected to a strategic business goal. Off-strategy ideas get parked.
  3. Customers — The team defines the highest-value customer segment and maps their problems by urgency.
  4. Context — The customer journey or workflow gets mapped and opportunity statements generated.
  5. AI Use Cases — Ideas get stress-tested across four lenses: growth potential, cost reduction, feasibility, and data availability. The ones that survive become AI Use Case Cards.

A practical guide to defining AI use cases →

THE OUTPUT

A prioritized list of
AI use cases

Each use case that survives the day gets documented as an AI Use Case Card — a single-page decision that captures what to build, why it's worth building, who it's for, and what success looks like.

For [Minimum Viable Segment] who experience [specific problem] that is [painful], we believe there's an opportunity to use [this AI capability] to help them achieve [desired outcome or pain relief]. This opportunity is aligned with our business goal of [specific KPI, OKR, or SMART goal].

The card also makes it possible to kill ideas early — not because someone didn't like them, but because they couldn't survive the process. Every idea that doesn't make it, is one your team won't spend the next six months building.

HOW TO WORK WITH US

Three ways to get an AI use case worth building

Ask us to facilitate

You bring the AI ideas and the business context. DSA facilitates the full day — moving your team through prioritization, customer definition, and use case stress-testing. By end of day, you have a prioritized list of AI opportunities — specific enough to brief engineering, clear enough to take to leadership. The fastest path from scattered AI ideas to a decision your team owns.

One day. Up to 7 participants. On-site or remote

Book a consultancy call to see if we are the right fit

Train your teams

A one-day training for up to 15 people. Your team learns the full AI Problem Framing methodology and leaves with everything needed to run sessions independently — the Playbook, Facilitation Slides, Agendas, and the AI Copilot. One investment.

Every AI decision conversation your team has from this point forward runs through a method, not improv. For teams who've been asked to lead AI initiatives and want to stop depending on external support to define which problems are worth solving.

Up to 15 participants. In-person at your organization

Book a call to discuss an internal cohort for your team

Try the method first — join a public session

Not ready to commit to an internal engagement? The public session lets you experience the full AI Problem Framing method before deciding how to bring it into your organisation. One day alongside practitioners and facilitators from other companies — you run the method in real conditions and leave with the full Facilitation Toolkit. A low-commitment way to test whether this is the right approach for your team.

From the field

How AI Problem Framing works in practice - and what we've learned running it with teams at Google, HSBC, Adidas and beyond.

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One day of AI Problem Framing costs less than one week of a misaligned engineering team.

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