Practical AI Roadmap Workbook for Business Executives
A clear, hype-free workbook showing where AI can actually help your business — and where it won’t.
The Dev Guys – Mumbai — Built with clarity, speed, and purpose.
The Need for This Workbook
In today’s business world, leaders are often told they must have an AI strategy. AI discussions are happening everywhere—from vendors to competitors. But business heads often struggle between two bad decisions:
• Accepting every proposal and hoping it works out.
• Declining AI entirely because of confusion or doubt.
This workbook offers a balanced third option: a calm, realistic way to identify where AI truly fits in your business — and where it doesn’t.
You don’t need to understand AI models or algorithms — just your workflows, data, and decisions. AI is simply a tool built on top of those foundations.
Best Way to Apply This Workbook
You can complete this alone or with your management team. It’s not about completion — it’s about clarity. By the end, you’ll have:
• A short list of meaningful AI opportunities tied to profit or efficiency.
• Understanding of where AI should not be used.
• A clear order of initiatives instead of scattered trials.
Use it for insight, not just as a template. A good roadmap fits on one slide and makes sense to your CFO.
AI strategy is just business strategy — minus the buzzwords.
Step One — Focus on Business Goals
Focus on Goals Before Tools
The usual focus on bots and models misses the real point. Non-technical leaders should start from business outcomes instead.
Ask:
• What top objectives are driving your business now?
• Where are teams overworked or error-prone?
• Where do poor data or slow insights hold back progress?
AI is valuable only when it moves key metrics — revenue, margins, time, or risk. If an idea doesn’t tie to these, it’s not a roadmap — it’s just an experiment.
Start here, and you’ll invest in leverage — not novelty.
Understand How Work Actually Happens
Map Workflows, Not Tools
You must see the true flow of tasks, not the idealised version. Simply document every step from beginning to end.
Examples include:
• Lead comes in ? assigned ? follow-up ? quote ? revision ? close/lost.
• Support ticket ? triaged ? answered ? escalated ? resolved.
• Invoice issued ? tracked ? escalated ? payment confirmed.
Each step has three parts: inputs, actions, outputs. AI adds value where inputs are messy, actions are repetitive, and outputs are predictable.
Step Three — Choose What Matters
Score AI Use Cases by Impact, Effort, and Risk
Evaluate AI ideas using a simple impact vs effort grid.
Map your ideas to see where AI to start.
• Quick Wins — high impact, low effort.
• Reserve resources for strategic investments.
• Nice-to-Haves — low impact, low effort.
• Avoid for Now — low impact, high effort.
Always judge the safety of automation before scaling.
Small wins set the foundation for larger bets.
Foundations & Humans
Get the Basics Right First
Without clean systems, AI will mirror your chaos. Ask yourself: Is the data 70–80% complete? Are processes well defined?.
Keep Humans in Control
AI should draft, suggest, or monitor — not act blindly. Build confidence before full automation.
Avoid Common AI Pitfalls
Learn from Others’ Missteps
01. The Demo Illusion — excitement without strategy.
02. The Pilot Problem — learning without impact.
03. The Automation Mirage — expecting overnight change.
Choose disciplined execution over hype.
Collaborating with Tech Teams
Your role is to define the problem clearly, not design the model. Focus on measurable results, not buzzwords. Expose real examples, not just ideal scenarios. Agree on success definitions and rollout phases.
Ask vendors for proof from similar businesses — and what failed first.
Signals & Checklist
Signs Your AI Roadmap Is Actually Healthy
Your AI plan fits on one business slide.
Your focus remains on business, not tools.
Finance understands why these projects exist.
The Non-Tech Leader’s AI Roadmap Checklist
Before any project, confirm:
• Which business metric does this improve?
• Which workflow is involved, and can it be described simply?
• Is the data complete enough for repetition?
• Who owns the human oversight?
• What is the 3-month metric?
• If it fails, what valuable lesson remains?
Final Thought
AI should make your business calmer, clearer, and more controlled — not noisier or chaotic. A real roadmap is a disciplined sequence of high-value projects that strengthen your best people. When AI becomes part of your workflow quietly, it stops being hype — it becomes infrastructure.