DISCOVER · BEFORE THE REQUEST
AI Opportunity Canvas
Decides whether an observation made in a partner's work is worth writing up as an opportunity statement and carrying to the Request gate, and in what form.
Most of what we carry to the front door was never requested; we noticed it while sitting with a partner. Left as an observation it arrives later as a solution in disguise, usually "build us an agent", and the need beneath it is gone before anyone shapes it. Fixing the need, the trigger and a value range before the request exists gives the relationship layer something worth ranking, and spares the partner a shaping conversation that starts by taking their answer away.
Use it when
- A partner describes a decision they dread, a queue they cannot clear or a report nobody reads, and you can see a shape in it.
- A minister, board or executive has named an outcome the partner is accountable for and the current process will not deliver it.
- You have watched the same information re-keyed, re-checked or re-explained at every handoff.
- A complaint, audit finding or service review has shown where citizens or customers wait, repeat themselves or give up.
- Something has changed (statute or policy, a budget line, a contract ending, a new data source) that makes a long-tolerated problem worth acting on.
Outcome and trigger
Start from the outcome the partner is accountable for. If it is not theirs to move, the opportunity is not ours to carry.
Write the business outcome in the partner's own words and the measure they already report against it: cases closed within standard, decisions upheld on appeal, cost per transaction, time to a first answer. Good is an outcome a minister, board or executive already asks about.
Name the event that makes this worth acting on in the next twelve months where it was tolerated before: a statute or policy change, a contract ending, a budget line moving, a new data source, a service failure that reached the top. Good has a date or a decision attached; general availability of a technology does not count.
Where the work hurts
Capture what we observed in the partner's work, one line each. Leave a cell empty rather than invent friction; the pattern across the filled cells is what shaping will work with.
Decisions the partner's people make often and find hard: slow, inconsistent between people, escalated more than they should be, or made without information that exists elsewhere. Write who decides, what they lack and what a wrong call costs.
Tasks done many times a day or week that follow a recognisable shape: classifying, drafting the same letter, checking a submission against rules, moving data between screens. Write the task, the volume in the partner's own unit and who does it.
Waiting, re-keying, chasing, re-checking, rework after an error. Write where in the process the delay sits, whether it is a person's time or the elapsed time of the case, and what the partner already tracks that shows it.
Moments where the people the partner serves wait, repeat themselves, receive an answer they cannot act on or give up. Write the moment, the evidence (complaints, drop-off, contact volume) and whether a vulnerable group feels it first.
Knowledge that exists but does not reach the person who needs it in time: buried in documents, held by one expert, spread across systems that do not talk to each other. Write what is needed, where it lives today and who has to go and get it.
List what we have seen rather than been told: a queue report, a complaint log, a rework figure the partner publishes, a process map. Good is material the partner produced before we arrived, so nobody can say it was shaped to fit.
Opportunity statement
One sentence. It will be read by people who were not in the room, so it must survive without us there to explain it.
Use the form exactly: the partner is trying to (outcome), cannot (the thing they cannot do or do well enough), because (the observed cause from the section above), resulting in (the consequence for the outcome, the citizen or customer, or the cost). No tool, model or rung of the autonomy ladder belongs in this sentence.
Name the strategic priority, statutory duty or executive commitment this outcome sits under, and how directly: it is the priority itself, a known blocker to it, or adjacent. Good is a line the sponsoring executive would agree with unprompted; if adjacent is the honest answer, write adjacent.
Write what happens if nothing is done for the next twelve months. If the honest answer is that the partner would tolerate it, the opportunity is weaker than it looks and the decision at the foot of the canvas should say so.
Value hypothesis
A hypothesis, written as a range, that shaping and value planning will test. Keep how much the benefit could be worth separate from how likely it is to arrive.
Pick the primary type: cashable, non-cashable, avoided cost, quality or strategic. Add a secondary only if the partner would fund the work on the secondary alone.
Lower and upper bound, in the partner's own unit (hours a week, cases a month, days of cycle time, or money) over the first twelve months after the change lands. The lower bound is the figure the partner would still act on; if there is no such figure, stop here.
State what has to be true for the upper half of the range to arrive: which data must be accessible and owned, which process must stay stable, which team must adopt it, which policy must change. Each condition should be something a named role could check within a few weeks.
Low, medium or high, with one line on why. Keep it separate from the range: a large potential with low probability is a different conversation from a modest one that is nearly certain.
Ready for the front door
Tick only what is true. Anything left unticked is either a reason to hold or the first task after entering the Request gate.
Where this goes
The Request gate is one route in and no wrong door. The bar for entering is an honest statement of the need and a value range we would defend in front of the partner; the answer is for Shape to work out.
Record the option chosen and two or three sentences on why, written for someone who was not in the room. If it is Hold or Park, name what would change the decision.
The partner-side sponsor who will put their name on the request and the relationship-layer contact who will shape it. If redirecting, name the neighbour and the role there that has agreed to receive it.
For a discovered opportunity the gate is Request, one route in, no wrong door. Write the date it will be logged and the date 02 Demand Shaping is booked; if the decision is Hold or Park, write the review date instead.
What a good one looks like
- The opportunity statement follows the form, names a consequence, and contains no tool, model or autonomy rung.
- The observation cells that matter are backed by something the partner already produces: a queue report, a complaint log, a rework figure.
- The value range has a lower bound the partner would still act on, and every condition for the upper half is something a named role could check.
- The counterfactual is honest; where doing nothing would be tolerated, the decision is Hold or Park and says why.
- The partner's operational lead recognises the statement as their problem in their own words and has agreed to sponsor the request.
Where it goes wrong
- Writing the answer as the opportunity. "The partner needs an assistant that drafts responses" is a request in disguise; the canvas should say what they cannot do and what it costs them.
- Padding the observation grid. Thin entries in every cell are worse than sharp entries in two; leave a cell empty rather than invent friction the partner did not describe.
- Quoting the upper bound as the value. A range with no conditions attached is a point estimate with a decorative spread, and the front door will treat the top of it as a promise.
- Skipping the trigger. Without a why-now the opportunity competes with everything the partner has tolerated for years, and loses.