Earlier business notes
Before automating coordination, understand the work
Questions about information, approvals and people when considering AI tools for coordination work inside a company.
By Rajiv Sankarlall · Updated
Meeting summaries, status updates and task reminders can look like obvious work to automate. But a manager's week may also include resolving disagreements, noticing that someone is struggling and explaining why a priority changed. Before redesigning a role around AI, separate those activities.
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List what coordination involves
Take a recent project and trace how work moved. Who gathered information? Who followed up on missing details? Who decided between conflicting requests? Who helped someone understand what was expected?
Some of that work may be repetitive. Some requires context that does not appear in a task tracker. Ask the people doing it to explain the difficult parts before assuming a software tool can absorb the role.
Test a limited use
You might start by drafting a status summary from information your team already records. Keep a person responsible for checking it before anyone relies on it. Look for missing details, misleading certainty and changes in meaning.
Ask whether the summary helps the people receiving it. A faster report is not useful if it makes problems harder to see or adds another place they must check. Compare it with a simpler alternative, such as a shorter update written by the project owner.
Preserve a route to a person
Make it obvious how someone can challenge an output, ask for context or raise an issue that does not fit the workflow. An automated reminder should not become the only way a person can discuss why work is late.
Before expanding a tool's permissions, consider what information it handles and what it could change. NIST's AI Risk Management Framework offers a broader way to organize that review.
Discuss role changes directly with the people affected. Be clear about what is being tested and which decisions have actually been made. Avoid presenting a technology experiment as a settled conclusion about someone's value.
If the underlying problem is that everyone waits for the founder, first examine how responsibility is handed over. A new tool may leave the same unclear arrangement in place.