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Paper Crane / services / ai-consulting / ai-strategy
A fixed engagement that tells you where your organization actually stands, what is worth doing, and in what order. It ends with a roadmap, the governance documents your board will ask for, and one working tool.
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Note
Most organizations have not looked
Somebody in finance is expensing a subscription nobody tracks. Somebody in communications has built four things their colleagues have never seen. A board has asked what the AI plan is, and the honest answer is that nobody has checked.
That is a measurement problem before it is a technology problem. You cannot sequence work you have not seen, and most AI roadmaps fail because they were written against an imagined version of the organization rather than the real one.
So we look first. Then we decide what is worth doing, given what your systems and your data can actually support today.
What you get
01
A readiness assessment
Four axes, scored, with the raw findings behind them. The instrument stays with you, so you can run it again in six months and know whether anything held.
02
An opportunity map
Everything we found, scored by effort against impact, and filtered for what is actually possible with the systems and data you have now.
03
A sequenced roadmap
An order, with the reasoning for the order, and rough sizing on each step. Not a list of everything AI can theoretically do.
04
A governance pack
Staff use policy, a data handling and privacy position, an approved tool and model list, and pre-written answers for your board and your funders.
05
One working tool
The highest-scoring quick win off the map, built and handed over inside a day cap we agree before starting. You leave with something running, not only something written.
What we measure
Shadow usage
What is already happening without sanction. Who is using what, paid for how, holding which data. Usually the finding that gets leadership's attention fastest.
Data readiness
Where your organization's knowledge lives and what state it is in. This is the constraint that kills most AI plans, and almost nobody checks it before making promises.
Systems and integration surface
What you run, what has an API, what is locked shut. This decides whether the automation on your roadmap takes weeks or quarters.
Fluency across the team
How wide the spread is between the person building tools and the person who has opened the app twice. The distance between those two is almost always larger than leadership expects.
Note
The governance pack
Every engagement includes four documents: a use policy that says what staff may put into which tools and who approves new ones, a data handling and privacy position covering what leaves your organization and what PIPEDA or FOIP mean for it, an approved tool and model list with the reasoning attached so the decision survives staff turnover, and a set of pre-written answers for the questions boards and funders ask.
This is the part that makes the rest of it survivable. A roadmap with no policy underneath it gets overtaken by whatever people were already doing.
Note
How it runs
Three to four weeks, fixed scope. Week one is measurement: the instrument goes out to the whole team while we interview leadership, operations, and whoever is already building things. Week two turns the findings into the opportunity map and agrees the build target from a shortlist.
Week three is the build and the drafting, running in parallel. Week four is the handover, presented to the people who funded it, ending with what comes next and roughly what it costs.
The strategy is model-neutral. We assess what you are running and recommend honestly, including telling you to stay on the tools already in your tenant. Where our own hands-on depth is relevant, we say so rather than quietly steering you toward it.
Who this is not for
Organizations using AI to justify headcount cuts
It is not the work we take. Most of our clients are trying to do more with the team they have.
Boards who want a document to wave
If nobody intends to act on the roadmap, the engagement fails no matter how good the roadmap is. We would rather say that now than in week four.
Common questions
What does it cost?
It depends on the size of your organization and how much ground the assessment has to cover. We scope and quote before you commit, and the price is fixed once it is agreed.
Are we too small for this?
Possibly. If you are under about twenty people, book the call anyway and we will tell you in twenty minutes whether you need an engagement or just an afternoon.
What if we already know what we want built?
Then you may not need this. Tell us what it is and we will point you at the right conversation, which might be a build rather than an assessment.
Do you recommend your own services at the end?
The roadmap names what should happen next, and sometimes that is work we do. It is also frequently work you should do internally, or not yet, and we say that too. You are paying for the assessment, not for a proposal.
What happens after the four weeks?
You have a roadmap, a policy, an instrument and a working tool. Some clients carry on with us into enablement or automation. Some take it and run it themselves, which is a perfectly good outcome.
Next step
Find out where you actually are
Come with the situation as it is, including the parts that are embarrassing. You do not need a brief, and you do not need to have worked out what you want first.