A 3 to 4 week engagement that classifies every AI bet across H1 Core, H2 Adjacent, and H3 Transform. You walk out with a board-ready roadmap and the language to defend it.
We measure horizons by reach, not time. AI moves too fast for time windows to hold. Reach (how far the bet sits from your current operating model) stays anchored. Each horizon gets its own protected budget, its own measurement standard, and its own named failure mode. Not time. Reach.
Workflows your business already runs. Document processing, lead routing, internal copilots. Efficiency plays on existing operations.
Failure mode: pilot purgatory. H1 wins that never reach production because they're owned by an innovation team instead of an ops team.
One step out from the core. New agents on existing problems. New capabilities on the same operating model. Custom multi-agent workflows, AI-native features, vertical-specific models.
Failure mode: stalled handoff. H2 builds that work in a demo and never integrate with the core business.
A new operating model. A new business model. A new product line. Org redesign, replacing entire workflows with orchestrated agents, AI-first product categories.
Failure mode: frozen transformation. H3 bets that get talked about for two years and never get funded because no one wants to defend them.
Every deliverable is written to survive executive scrutiny. Not vibes. Defensible allocation.
Every active AI bet, every paused pilot, every backlogged idea, classified across H1/H2/H3. Color-coded by status, owner, and expected payback.
Why the current spend mix is wrong, what to move, and the language to defend it to your board. Named failure modes per horizon so you can flag your own risks honestly.
What ships at the core this year. What gets seeded one step out. What gets a discovery budget at the transformation horizon. Quarterly milestones, named owners, measurable outcomes.
The pilots and bets to retire. The vendors to consolidate. The teams to redirect. Most clients save more in the kill list than they spend on the engagement.
Four working sessions, plus interviews with 8 to 12 team members. Built so the artifact lands in your next board cycle.
Interview the operators, the engineers, the executive sponsors. Surface the pilots no one wants to admit failed.
Score by distance from the core, capital required, strategic fit, and risk profile. Identify the gaps.
Reallocate budget across horizons. Surface the kill list. Stress-test against the named failure modes.
Package as an executive deck or memo. Walk the team through the defense. Hand off the artifact your CFO can quote in next quarter's planning.
The deliverable is not a deck. It is an allocation defense your CFO will sign off on.
A portfolio map that survives executive scrutiny. Named failure modes for each horizon, so you can audit yourself quarterly. A kill list with dollar values attached. The language to defend AI spend without resorting to "AI is important."
AI spend dropped or held flat, but throughput went up. Pilot purgatory shrank because H1 ownership moved from innovation to ops. H2 builds shipped because handoff paths were named upfront. H3 conversations stopped being theoretical because budget was earmarked.
A 3 to 4 week engagement that classifies every active AI bet, every paused pilot, and every backlogged idea across three horizons: H1 Core (~70% of budget), H2 Adjacent (~20%), and H3 Transform (~10%). Adapted from McKinsey's 1999 Three-Horizon growth model. Output is a board-ready roadmap with named failure modes per horizon and the budget defense language to back it up.
$5-15k, 3 to 4 weeks. Scoped against the number of active AI bets in the portfolio and the number of stakeholders involved. Quoted in writing within 48 hours of the discovery call.
AI moves too fast for time windows to hold. A 12-month roadmap is obsolete by month four. Reach (how far the bet sits from your current operating model) stays anchored across model shifts. H1 Core is the work your business already runs. H2 Adjacent is one step out. H3 Transform is a new operating model. Reach is durable. Time isn't.
Yes, especially. The review is more valuable before the portfolio gets messy. Easier to set allocation rules than to unwind bad ones.
Generic AI strategy outputs a deck. This outputs an allocation defense your CFO will sign off on. I write the language for the board memo.
No. This is the portfolio review. If you want to ship the H1 wins, that becomes a separate scoped build engagement. The review tells you which ones to ship.
Good. That's the engagement. The framework forces the disagreement into the open instead of letting it stall the portfolio.
I hold ~4 active client commitments across Fractional, Scoped Build, and Audit. Mix depends on what's already booked.
Book the call. 30 minutes to see if your portfolio fits the engagement.