AI Projects Only Matter If They Move the Needle

Organizations are eager to put generative AI to work in support of their business goals, yet many struggle to prioritize which AI use cases to develop first. Prioritization presents a difficult challenge, as a typical enterprise can identify hundreds of potential AI use cases across finance, operations, marketing, sales, human resources and other corporate functions.

To help companies address the prioritization challenge and gain alignment from business stakeholders, Dell Technologies conducts Accelerator Workshops for GenAI. Over the last several months, we've held workshops with many organizations, with positive results.

In these half-day, fee-waived workshops, Dell consultants work with the customer's business and technology stakeholders to generate ideas for AI use cases that support key business initiatives, and gather stakeholder input on business value and implementation feasibility for each use case.

Start by Focusing on One or Two Business Initiatives

Prior to an AI business alignment workshop, business and technology stakeholders review the organization's strategic business initiatives for the next 12 to 18 months. The stakeholders narrow down the business initiatives to one or two that offer the most promise for AI to generate meaningful value.

In the workshop, stakeholders will generate use case ideas to support the business initiatives. First, they need to have a well-rounded understanding of the selected initiatives. What are the desired outcomes, KPIs and benefits? What are the hurdles? What are the consequences if an initiative falls short? Who are the key stakeholders who impact or will be impacted by an initiative?

Ideate AI Use Cases to Support the Business Initiative

Now, the participants are ready to brainstorm use cases. For the purposes of the AI business alignment workshop, a use case is a set of actions outlining a business or operational scenario-framed by desired outcomes, critical decisions and KPIs and metrics-that contributes to optimizing the targeted business initiative.

For example, if the business initiative is "Reduce Unplanned Operational Downtime," some use cases might be:

• "Improve predictive maintenance"
• "Improve technician training and certification"
• "Reduce supply chain risks"

It's not unusual to come up with a list of 20 to 30 AI use case ideas for a single business initiative. For each use case, stakeholders list key decisions, desired outcomes and KPIs and metrics. Spotting overlaps in these categories will help to consolidate the number of use cases down to eight to 12.

Selecting Use Cases with the Highest Returns

Next, Dell consultants work with participants to approximate the business value of each use case and its expected outcomes. Key categories of business value include revenue growth, product or service quality, faster cycle times, reduced costs and improved strategic position.

Business and IT stakeholders also examine the implementation feasibility of each use case. Some of the key categories of feasibility are data availability and readiness, degree of AI model tuning, processes and people and a capable platform.

Dell consultants and customer stakeholders then position the use cases on a prioritization matrix. The highest return use cases, those with high business value and high implementation feasibility, are placed in the upper right quadrant of the matrix.

Looking at an Example

Dell held a workshop with a major healthcare facility that chose "Optimize operational effectiveness" as the strategic business initiative to impact with AI. Four groups assessed the associated outcomes, KPIs, benefits, impediments and stakeholders. The groups also listed the consequences of not fulfilling the initiative. They listed potential use cases, then consolidated them into a final list of 13 use cases, which included "attract top talent," "increase patient encounters," "increase and automate reports" and "improve resident retention and satisfaction." Each group then positioned each of the 13 use cases on the prioritization matrix.

Interestingly, while there was consensus on the most relevant use cases, there was not a high degree of consensus between the four groups as to which use cases should be positioned in the desirable upper right (high business value / high implementation feasibility) quadrant.

This real-life example shows that while an organization's business and technology stakeholders can achieve agreement upon an initial set of use cases, gaining consensus and alignment requires significantly more time and effort than is available in a compressed workshop format.

What's Next After the Workshop

Gaining consensus and alignment on the specific prioritization of use cases requires an inclusive, systematic methodology to detail the use case "Business Value" and "Feasibility" dimensions. For this, Dell Technologies offers GenAI ProConsult Advisory engagements to help customers execute the detailed use case prioritization work. Our experience is that this is usually a weeks-long effort.

In the ProConsult Advisory, Dell experts work with you to break down the Business Value and Feasibility categories into several clear criteria, to which the stakeholders apply relative weights. The team enriches and validates the use case submissions and assigns numerical scores.

Last, we explore opportunities for sharing data across use cases, which can simplify use case deployment and accelerate the value delivered to your business users.

At the conclusion of the GenAI ProConsult Advisory engagement, the customer will have a prioritized roadmap of AI use cases to develop.

A GenAI Business Alignment Workshop May be Right for You

If you're hearing ideas for generative AI projects from departments all over your company and are finding it challenging to sift out those that can transform your business, a Dell Technologies GenAI Accelerator Workshop can assist you in assessing a targeted business initiative, engaging key stakeholders in a collaborative process, identifying candidate use cases and sorting out those that have high business value and meet feasibility requirements.

Does a Dell Technologies GenAI Accelerator Workshop make sense for your organization?

If you think your stakeholders and executives would find value in this type of collaborative workshop, have a discussion with your Dell account representative today.

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