Diagnose before you prescribe.
Find where AI pays before you pay for AI. The Diagnostic shows you, with evidence, where AI and better systems would create the most value in your business, and in what order to act.
A 30-minute conversation. If a Diagnostic is not worth doing for your business, I will tell you.
Most companies do not have an AI problem. They have a where-to-start problem.
The licenses are bought. A pilot ran for a month. A few people use AI tools on their own accounts, and nobody is quite sure what goes into them. Ask where AI has saved the business a dollar, and the room goes quiet.
Every one of those decisions was reasonable. The trouble is the order. Tools were chosen before anyone established which problem was worth solving, so the tools went looking for a problem. That is how a company ends up paying for software nobody uses.
Nobody walks into a hospital and asks for surgery. They ask what is wrong. The AI Diagnostic is that examination, done properly, before you spend real money on implementation.
Five steps, two to four weeks
A structured examination of how the work really runs, with the people who do it.
Research
We study your business, your systems and the work in scope before we meet your team.
Kickoff
We agree the scope, the people involved and what success looks like, in writing.
Interviews
One-to-one conversations from leadership to the front line, kept confidential.
Observation
We watch the real work, on screen or on site, not the version in the manual.
The Blueprint
What we found, why it happens, what to do first, and what it will honestly cost.
Why it matters: the best opportunities are often not where leadership expects them. They sit in the gap between how the work is supposed to run and how it actually runs, and only the people doing it can show you that gap.
A plan you can act on, not a slide deck of possibilities
The AI Blueprint
The full written report, built on evidence and ready for your leadership team to act on.
- Every finding, with the evidence behind it
- The root causes, not just the symptoms
- A prioritized list of opportunities with honest effort and cost, including those that need no new software at all
- A 90-day plan with named owners, dates and milestones
A risk and governance section
Written for your counsel: where your exposure sits on data, confidentiality and decisions about people, with a practical recommendation for each.
A starter AI-use policy
Clear rules on what your team may use, what must never go into an AI tool, and who approves what. Many companies need one and do not yet have one.
A live readout
We walk your leadership team through the findings and the plan, and answer every question in the room.
A 30-day follow-up
A call a month later to check progress against the plan and help clear whatever is in the way.
The standard behind every finding
A Blueprint is only useful if your leadership team can trust every line of it.
Evidence before recommendations
No finding reaches the Blueprint unless it is backed by your own data or by several independent accounts. When a figure is an estimate, it says so.
Your people speak in confidence
We report patterns, never who said what.
Honest arithmetic
We keep time freed, costs avoided and margin protected separate, and we never count hours as if people were leaving.
We can build what we recommend
So nothing is lost between the plan and the work. You are under no obligation to use us for it.
What does the repetitive work cost you today?
Think of the team that does the most re-typing, chasing and searching. Four numbers give you the cost of that work each year, before a single client is lost to a slow reply or an error.
If the number is small, a Diagnostic is not urgent, and I will tell you so. If it is large, the question is not whether to act. It is where to start, and that is what the Diagnostic answers.
Clear about the limits
It cannot make anyone use what it recommends
That takes leadership, and the Blueprint names who owns each step.
It will not recommend AI where the evidence does not support it
Some of the best findings are a process fixed, a report retired or a decision made, with no technology at all.
It is not implementation
It tells you exactly what to build and in what order. Building it is a separate decision.
It is not legal, tax or financial advice
Where the work touches those areas, it shows your advisors where to look.
Two sizes, one standard
For owner-led and growing firms, typically 50 to 500 people. Smaller firms with high revenue per person, such as financial planners, law firms and specialist practices, can choose a Focused Diagnostic tailored to their size.
- One workflow, examined end to end
- Up to five interviews and one observation session
- The AI Blueprint, risk section, starter AI-use policy, readout and 30-day call
- Two or three connected workflows
- Up to eight interviews, observation of each workflow, and an anonymous staff survey
- The AI Blueprint, risk section, starter AI-use policy, readout and 30-day call
We diagnose, and we build
The same discipline runs through all of it: find the real problem with evidence first, then build only what the evidence supports, and make sure the people who do the work actually use it.
One system for a sports-field contractor
A contractor running on spreadsheets, paper checklists and text-message dispatch, with information re-typed at every handoff. We mapped the work with everyone from the owner to the field crews, then designed and launched SportsFieldOps: one connected record from website enquiry to proposal, signature, scheduling, a bilingual crew app, job costing and invoicing.
An intake assistant for a Maryland law firm
Every consultation booking had to be re-entered by hand. We built an assistant that creates each new lead automatically, alerts the team in real time, flags unclear bookings for a person to check rather than guessing, and sends an end-of-day summary.
Cleaner enquiries for a law firm website
Spam and sales pitches were burying genuine client enquiries. We built a screening step that blocks them before they reach the inbox, designed to fail safe: if anything goes wrong, the enquiry is delivered rather than lost.
Candidate evaluation for an accounting firm
A secure web tool that helps the firm assess candidates consistently, with every hiring decision made by a person.
Frankie Barwell, Founder and Principal, Option 10 LLC
I help owner-led businesses find the profit and the time already inside them, and fix where it leaks. The AI Diagnostic brings the same discipline to AI: understand the work first, prove where the value is, and only then decide what to build.
You work with me directly, from the first conversation to the readout. Every finding and recommendation in your Blueprint is developed and reviewed personally by me.
What owners usually ask
Is this a sales pitch for AI software?
No. The Diagnostic recommends AI only where the evidence supports it, and many of the best findings need no new technology at all. Where a tool is the right answer, the Blueprint compares realistic options, starting with what you already own.
How much of my team's time does it take?
Most people give one interview of about an hour. A few are asked for a short screen-share of their real work, and the Full Diagnostic adds a short anonymous survey. Your sponsor and a coordinator spend more time, mainly at the kickoff and the readout.
How do you handle our data and what people tell you?
Interviews are confidential: we report patterns, never who said what. We ask for samples and read-only access rather than whole systems, use established cloud providers for transcription, document analysis and secure storage on terms that do not allow your data to be used for training, and delete working copies on an agreed date. The full list of providers is available on request.
Do we need to be "ready" for AI first?
No. Finding out where you stand is part of the work. If your data or processes need attention before AI would help, the Blueprint says so plainly and puts that work first.
What happens after the Blueprint?
You decide. You can act on it yourselves, with another provider, or with us. If you would like us to build the first phase, it is quoted separately and you are under no obligation.
What is the AI Readiness Check?
A free 30-minute conversation about your business, where AI is already being used, and where the time goes. You leave with a clear view of whether a Diagnostic is worth doing, and which size would fit.
Start with a free 30-minute AI Readiness Check
We will talk about your business, where the time goes and what you have already tried. You will leave knowing whether a Diagnostic is worth doing, and if it is not, I will say so.
Book your Readiness CheckHave a question first? Send a short note and I will reply within one business day.
Send a short note
Ask anything about the Diagnostic, whether it would suit your business, or how the Readiness Check works. I will reply personally within one business day.