chapter three

3 How to frame the right AI opportunity every time

 

This chapter covers

  • Starting on the right foot with a clear, complete Idea Statement
  • Making sure you tackle the right decision, creatively
  • Establishing baselines and benchmarks for early opportunity assessment
  • Assessing the organization’s analytics maturity

Roll up your sleeves, this is where the real work begins. In this chapter, we enter the most critical phase of the AI Road Test: the investigation. Many AI initiatives fail because they do not address a business-relevant problem or cannot be sustained due to insufficient organizational maturity. This chapter aims to prevent those failures by helping you frame an AI opportunity that is clear, actionable, and grounded in reality.

Building on Chapter 1’s why and Chapter 2’s what, we start focusing on the how: how to move from an initial AI idea to a detailed and validated one. This is the point where intuition gives way to structured analysis, and enthusiasm is tested against operational reality. You will learn how to ensure your AI effort targets the right decision, for the right users, and in service of the right outcome.

3.1 An apparent opportunity that turned out to be secondary

3.1.1 The business of direct selling in Latin America

3.1.2 Finding the keys to unlock growth

3.2 Starting with a clear idea

3.2.1 The elements of a clear Idea Statement

3.2.2 What do we mean by a problem?

3.2.3 Documenting a complete Idea Statement

3.2.4 Initial Idea Statement at LuminaEsencia

3.3 Making sure we tackle the right decision, creatively

3.3.1 Reverse engineering decisions with the issue tree

3.3.2 How to build an issue tree in practice

3.4 Sizing the enterprise opportunity

3.4.1 Setting the baseline

3.4.2 Choosing the right benchmark

3.4.3 Practical tools to size the enterprise opportunity

3.5 Assessing analytics maturity

3.5.1 Evaluating both maturity signs and enablers for robustness

3.5.2 Using predefined criteria for each domain and maturity level

3.5.3 The case for objective maturity assessment

3.5.4 Visualizing the maturity assessment

3.6 How we reframed the opportunity at LuminaEsencia

3.6.1 Aligning on the decision

3.6.2 Aligning ambition with analytics maturity at LuminaEsencia

3.7 Summary