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Name the one number AI should move for your business, the process behind it, the owner, and the four-week keep-or-drop call. Fill it in with your team before you buy any tool. It is free, it saves as you type, and it prints to a one-pager you can take into the room.
Fill it in with your team
One page. One process. Fill it in before you buy any tool. Boxes 1, 4, 5 and 9 are the minimum. Your work saves in this browser as you type.
The one number this year must move. Pick the number that would tell you the AI worked, not a vanity count.
Who buys from you, and what do they want faster, cheaper, or with less hassle? Where do they lose patience with you today?
Which one moves your North Star number? Pick one to start. You can change it next round.
One process, named. Where it starts, where it ends, and how long it takes today.
One person who runs the experiment. Not the busiest, and not the youngest by default.
Sales, messages, receipts, stock. Where does it get recorded so AI can read it?
Which tool, what it costs per month, and who holds the login. Size it from the outcome →
Your guardrails. Who checks before anything leaves the business, and what data never goes into a free tool.
Did the number move? By how much? Then make the call, and name the next process.
It uses the structure Microsoft runs its own products on: one North Star number, above the fast metrics you can change this week and below slow ones like revenue, with a guardrail on what must not get worse (box 8) and an honest week-four check on whether the change caused the result (box 9). Most of the boxes sit on people and process, because that is where the return comes from.
Sources: Microsoft Research on the North Star metric; MIT, State of AI in Business 2025 (about 95% of enterprise AI pilots show no measurable profit); BCG 10-20-70 (about 70% of the value is people and process); Gartner (at least 30% of GenAI projects dropped after proof of concept).