AI Strategy Sprint · 4 weeks
Four weeks from AI confusion
to a costed, prioritized roadmap.
The AI Strategy Sprint is a fixed-scope, four-week engagement. I assess your AI readiness, find where AI actually moves the needle in your business, and hand you a roadmap your team can act on.
It is the fastest way I know to replace "we should do something with AI" with a real plan. You get prioritized use cases, ROI estimates, a vendor short list, and a hiring plan, without committing to a long engagement up front.
$15K to $25K, one time.
Book a SprintThe Engagement
What you actually get.
Most AI advice stops at a slide deck. This does not. Over four weeks I sit with your team, look at your data, and figure out where AI earns its keep in your specific business. Then I write it all down in a form your leadership can approve and your team can start executing.
The scope is fixed and so is the price. You know on day one what you are paying and what lands on your desk at the end. Here is what you walk away with:
- An AI readiness assessment, 20 to 30 pages
- 5 to 10 prioritized use cases with ROI estimates
- A short list of recommended vendors for the top use cases
- A 12-month implementation roadmap
- A hiring plan for the internal team
- A leadership presentation to align your executives
I write these for a specific reader. The assessment is for your operators. The roadmap is for whoever holds the budget. The presentation is for the room where the decision gets made.
The Process
How the four weeks run.
Each week has a clear job and a clear output. Nothing drags, because the finish line is fixed before we start.
Discovery
The first week is listening. I talk to the people who run the work, look at where your data lives, and get an honest picture of what you already spend on AI tools.
- Interviews with 8 to 15 people across the company
- A data infrastructure audit: what you have and how usable it is
- A technology stack review
- An audit of your current AI tool spend
Deliverable: findings and an opportunity long list
Opportunity mapping
Week two turns raw findings into candidate use cases. I look at what your competitors are doing and flag anything we could ship as a quick win rather than a year-long build.
- Translate findings into concrete candidate use cases
- Review what competitors are shipping
- Flag quick wins we could act on early
Deliverable: a mapped set of opportunities
Prioritization and ROI
Week three is where the list gets honest. I score each use case by impact and effort, build the ROI estimates, make the build-versus-buy calls, and narrow the vendor list to the ones worth your time.
- Score every use case by impact and effort
- Build ROI estimates for the top candidates
- Make the build-versus-buy decisions
- Narrow the vendor list
Deliverable: prioritized use cases with ROI
Roadmap and handoff
The last week is about handing you something you can run with. I build the 12-month roadmap and the hiring plan, then I present the whole thing to your leadership team myself.
- A 12-month implementation roadmap
- A hiring plan for your internal team
- A presentation I deliver to your leadership
Deliverable: the AI strategy roadmap and executive presentation
Who it's for
Is a sprint right for you?
Mid-market companies ($10M to $200M)
You have real revenue, but you are not big enough to justify a full-time Chief AI Officer. Meanwhile your board keeps asking what your AI plan is, and you want a straight answer.
Private equity portfolio companies
You want a clear AI plan across the portfolio without adding permanent headcount. A sprint gives you a costed roadmap per company on a fixed timeline.
B2B SaaS teams
Customers are asking for AI features and your roadmap is getting crowded. You need a framework to decide what to build, what to buy, and what to skip.
Companies already spending on AI tools
You suspect there is overlap and waste in your AI subscriptions, and you want an honest audit before you sign one more contract.
Not the right fit?
If you are a pre-revenue startup looking for a technical co-founder, a team that wants someone to build models full-time, or anyone hoping AI will replace the workforce rather than help it, this is not the right engagement. I say so early, before you spend money finding out.
The Case
Why a fixed sprint beats an open-ended retainer.
You are probably wasting money already. I regularly find teams paying for $15K a month in overlapping AI tools that almost nobody uses. The sprint tends to pay for a chunk of itself in the first week just by naming what to cancel.
An open-ended consulting retainer has no finish line. The meter runs and the scope drifts. A sprint has a fixed scope and a fixed price, so you know exactly what you are buying and exactly when you get it.
A full-time AI hire takes 6 to 9 months to find, and that is before they learn your business. A sprint starts in about two weeks and gives you a plan in four.
Most of all, the sprint de-risks everything that comes after. You decide what to build only once you can see the ROI, not before. That single change of order saves more money than any tool I could recommend.
And it is not a dead end. The sprint fee credits toward a Fractional CAIO engagement if you decide to continue.
Case Study
What a sprint uncovers.
This is a simulated, composite example drawn from real engagements. The company name and specific figures are fictional.
Meridian Components is a $45M aerospace-components manufacturer with 280 employees. Their board had asked about AI at three straight meetings, and nobody had a plan to point to. They booked a sprint to get one.
In four weeks of interviews, two findings stood out. The quality control team was spending 60% of its time on visual inspections that already passed 94% of the time. And demand forecasting was unreliable enough that $2.3M was sitting in excess inventory.
The sprint delivered a three-phase roadmap. Phase one was an AI visual-inspection quick win on the highest-volume line, because it was the fastest path to visible results. Phase two was demand forecasting, sequenced after the quick win proved the approach. Phase three scaled both across the rest of the plant.
What happened next
Meridian executed the roadmap over the following year and saw roughly 3x first-year ROI. That is a good outcome, but it is worth being precise about what the sprint itself produced. The sprint produced the plan: the sequence, the ROI case, and the vendor calls that made the build low risk. The 12-month build was the reward for getting the order of operations right in four weeks.
Deliverables
On day 28, you have:
- A written AI strategy roadmap
- Prioritized use cases with ROI estimates
- A recommended tool and vendor short list
- A hiring plan for your internal team
- A leadership presentation
Investment
What it costs.
The sprint is $15K to $25K, one time. Where you land in that range depends on company size and complexity: more people to interview and more systems to audit push it toward the top.
There is no monthly retainer and no lock-in. You pay once, you get the roadmap, and you decide what comes next on your own timeline.
If you continue into a Fractional CAIO engagement afterward, the sprint fee credits toward it. So the assessment is never money you spend twice.
Illustrative
What clients say.
Representative examples of typical outcomes.
In four weeks we went from a board asking about AI with no answer, to a roadmap we are actually executing.
CEO, mid-market manufacturer
The sprint paid for itself in the first finding. We were quietly paying for two overlapping tools that did the same thing.
COO, professional services firm
Honest and fast. He told us which two of our five ideas were worth doing, and why the other three were not.
VP Engineering, B2B SaaS
FAQ
Common questions.
Four weeks, start to finish. The scope is fixed and so is the end date, so the work does not drift into a longer engagement unless you ask it to.
A written roadmap, prioritized use cases with ROI estimates, a vendor short list, a hiring plan, and a leadership presentation I deliver in person to your executives.
No. The sprint is assessment and strategy. Building usually comes after, often as a Fractional CAIO engagement, once you can see which use cases are worth the investment.
Then I tell you, and you have saved yourself a much larger mistake. My reputation is worth more than one contract, so I would rather send you away with an honest answer than sell you a build you do not need.
Yes. The sprint fee credits toward a Fractional CAIO engagement if you continue, so the assessment is never money you spend twice.
Ready?
Get your AI roadmap
in four weeks.
You already know AI matters for your business. The sprint turns that into a plan you can act on, with a fixed price and a fixed end date.
Book a SprintWant ongoing support after the roadmap? See the Fractional CAIO engagement.