The GOVBRM Framework

The GOVBRM Framework · AI Demand Toolkit

The AI Demand Toolkit. Twenty canvases, six gates, one route in.

Working canvases for Business Relationship Managers deciding where to spend relationship capital and organisational attention on AI. Built on the AI Value Operating Model and its six-gate front door, for public sector organisations anywhere and the regulated enterprises beyond them.

Shape the autonomy, not just the ask.

In one sentence

AI demand shaping is asking what an AI request is for, surfacing the need beneath it, choosing the lowest rung of autonomy that solves it, and committing a named owner and a number before anything is built.

The AI demand front door

Six gates. One route in. Four of them usually sit with nobody.

  1. Requestone route in, no wrong doorWho signsAnyone
  2. Shapeis the need real, does it need autonomy at allWho signsRelationship layer
  3. Rankagainst the whole portfolioWho signsRelationship layer
  4. Commita named owner and a numberWho signsRelationship layer
  5. Buildengineering owns the howWho signsDelivery
  6. Reviewmonth nine, value against the numberWho signsRelationship layer

Four of the six gates sit with nobody in most organisations. The relationship layer signs them. Engineering signs Build. Anyone can knock.

Between the gates, three bookable conversations

The toolkit

Six stages, each hung on a gate. Start anywhere, but the front door comes first.

  1. Gate: Request to Shape

    Discover

    Find the need beneath the request, and decide whether AI belongs in the answer at all.

    1. 01AI Opportunity Canvas
    2. 02AI Demand Shaping Canvas
  2. Gate: Shape

    Assess

    Record the facts, test readiness, and surface the risks before any attention is committed.

    1. 03AI Request Intake Canvas
    2. 04AI Readiness Canvas
    3. 05AI Risk and Ethics Canvas
  3. Gate: Rank

    Prioritise

    Rank against the whole portfolio, not one backlog. Value is not priority.

    1. 06AI Demand Value Map
    2. 07AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas
    3. 08AI Portfolio Heatmap
  4. Gate: Commit to Build

    Design

    A named owner and a number, the lowest rung that solves it, and decision logic a person wrote.

    1. 09AI Business Case Canvas
    2. 10AI Playbook Builder
    3. 11AI Agent Assessment Canvas
    4. 12AI Vendor Evaluation Canvas
    5. 13AI Prompt Governance Canvas
    6. 14AI Product Ownership Canvas
  5. Gate: Build

    Adopt

    Deployment is not use. Plan the behaviour change, the people it disrupts, and the work that changes.

    1. 15AI Stakeholder Impact Canvas
    2. 16AI Adoption Canvas
    3. 17AI Workforce Impact Canvas
  6. Gate: Month-nine review

    Realise

    Month nine: value against the number, what to scale, what to stop, and what returns to the front door.

    1. 18AI Benefits Realisation Canvas
    2. 19AI Value Realisation Review
    3. 20AI Capability Roadmap Canvas

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.

Stage
Discover
Gate
Request
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the partner's operational lead in the room, in one ninety-minute session. At the Request gate anyone signs, so the BRM and the partner sponsor both put their names to it; the relationship layer signs at Shape, once 02 Demand Shaping has been through it.
Inputs from
None
Feeds into
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas

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.
Canvas 01 of 20 Discover · Request gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DISCOVER · THE FRONT DOOR

AI Demand Shaping Canvas

Decides whether a request or opportunity describes a real need, whether it needs a model at all, and which of six routes it takes, with reasons the requester can respect.

Stage
Discover
Gate
Request to Shape
Conversation
Value planning
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the requester in the room, in one ninety-minute session; the sponsoring executive's delegate joins for the strategic context and the routing decision where the value range is material. The relationship layer signs the Shape gate. Anyone may raise a request; only the relationship layer may route it.
Inputs from
01 AI Opportunity Canvas, 03 AI Request Intake Canvas
Feeds into
03 AI Request Intake Canvas, 04 AI Readiness Canvas, 05 AI Risk and Ethics Canvas, 06 AI Demand Value Map, 07 AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas, 09 AI Business Case Canvas, 11 AI Agent Assessment Canvas

Without a Shape gate, requests arrive as solutions and get built as asked, so we fund the disguise rather than the need and the review at month nine has nothing to measure. Shaping is not a faster way to say no; it is where we ask what a piece of work is for and whether this is the right call on it. Every request passes through here once, so the portfolio we rank later is made of needs, ranges and owners rather than wishes.

Use it when

  • A request arrives through the one route in, whatever door it used, and has been logged on the Intake canvas.
  • An opportunity from the Opportunity canvas has enough shape to be tested against a real need.
  • A supplier demonstration or leadership enthusiasm has produced a build us an agent request.
  • Shadow use has been noticed and someone wants to make it official.
  • A pilot is asking to scale and nobody can find the original shaping record.

The signal and the need beneath it

Requests are solutions wearing a disguise. Write the request down exactly as it arrived, then work beneath it until the room agrees on the problem.

What we are hearing, from whom, in their words, and through which door it arrived. Note whether the same signal has come from other teams. Good: a direct quotation, the roles asking, and a date.

What they asked for, verbatim, before anyone improves it. The disguise is evidence of how the requester sees the problem.

The problem beneath the request, written as a person failing to get something done and what that costs today. Ask why until the answer is an outcome rather than a tool. Good: it reads differently from the request and the requester agrees with it.

Who carries the problem now: citizen or customer, front-line staff, a regulator, a minister, board or executive. Name the role rather than the department.

What happens if we do nothing for 12 months, honestly. If the answer is that little changes, write that; it is a legitimate reason to route to Decline.

What shows the need is real beyond the request itself: a complaint log, a queue, a backlog, an audit finding, a regulator's letter. If the request is the only evidence, say so.

Strategic context and value hypothesis

Tie the need to something leadership has already said it wants, then state what would improve as a range, keeping benefit potential separate from benefit probability.

The stated ambition from the strategy, plan or the priorities of the minister, board or executive that this need serves. Quote it. If nothing fits, the request is orphaned and that is a finding.

The single outcome that changes for someone if this works, in the language leadership already uses for it. One outcome, with the person who would notice it.

The money, risk appetite and capacity this must live within, as leadership has stated them. Write the one that bites hardest and who set it.

What improves, from floor to ceiling, in a unit someone will recognise: hours returned, cases cleared, days off a wait, cost avoided. Type the benefit as cashable, non-cashable, avoided cost, quality or strategic. A single figure here is a warning sign.

What has to be true for the top of the range to arrive: adoption by a named group, data of a stated quality, a process change, a policy decision. Each condition needs someone who can make it true.

How likely the floor is and why: a comparable case, a pilot, or a considered guess. Write the basis, since the Business Case canvas will test it.

AI suitability and the autonomy ladder

Ask for the lowest rung that solves it. Cost per task, blast radius and difficulty of evaluation all rise with each rung. Most requests that arrive as build us an agent are solved two rungs down; the ones that genuinely need the top rungs deserve the governance that comes with them.

Cost per task, blast radius and the difficulty of evaluation all rise with each rung. Ask for the lowest rung that solves it.

The rung the request implies, in the requester's language. An assistant that does it for us usually means rung four.

The chosen rung, by number and name, that we carry forward. Everything downstream is governed at this rung.

The specific thing the rung below cannot do for this need. If nobody in the room can name it, go down a rung and write the new answer.

At the chosen rung, what a wrong answer reaches before a person sees it: a draft, a record, a payment, a citizen or customer. This sets the depth of the Agent Assessment canvas.

Alternative routes

Before any build, test the routes shaped demand most often takes instead. Each needs an owner and a rough cost written against it to count as considered.

Describe the process the request sits on. If it is undocumented, unstable or performed differently by different people, write what fixing it would deliver with no model involved. Good: the process, its owner and the cheapest fix.

Tools, licences or services the organisation already pays for that would meet most of the need, including ones people have forgotten. Good: the specific feature, who already has access, and the gap that remains.

Whether this request is an instance of one of the small number of platform plays worth funding properly. Good: the play, its owner, and what this request adds to it or takes from it.

Whether a change to statute, policy, guidance or an internal rule would remove the problem outright, and who could make that change.

Readiness at a glance

Tick only what is true today; planned items stay unticked. Unticked items are the prerequisites, and the Readiness canvas takes over when the route needs the full picture.

Go, Wait, or Build prerequisites first, with the single unticked item that decided it.

Routing decision

One route, chosen with the requester present. The reasons go to the requester in writing before the record moves anywhere else. This is the Shape gate; the relationship layer signs it.

Three to five sentences the requester could read aloud to their own team: what we heard, what we found beneath it, why this route, and what would change our mind. Plain words; no policy citation stands in for a reason.

The named person and business role who would hold the number after handover, and the provisional figure at the floor of the value range in its own unit, with a review around month nine. If nobody will stand beside the number, record that; it usually means BRM engagement rather than Project.

The canvases this route opens, who completes each, and the date of the value planning conversation.

What a good one looks like

  • The root need is written as a person failing to get something done, and it reads differently from the request.
  • The value hypothesis is a range with a benefit type, and each condition for the upper half has a name beside it.
  • The chosen rung sits below the rung requested, or the room can say precisely why it does not.
  • At least one alternative route was taken seriously enough to have an owner and a rough cost written against it.
  • The requester has read the reasons and would repeat them accurately to their own director.

Where it goes wrong

  • Copying the request into the root need field with the word need in front of it.
  • A single figure in the value range, usually the ceiling, with no conditions attached.
  • Choosing the rung the vendor demonstrated rather than the lowest one that solves it.
  • Routing to Discovery because nobody wants to decline, which leaves the Shape gate open and the counterfactual unanswered.
Canvas 02 of 20 Discover · Request to Shape gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

ASSESS · ONE ROUTE IN

AI Request Intake Canvas

Captures an incoming AI request as facts, before anyone judges it, so that shaping starts from what was actually asked rather than from what someone remembers.

Stage
Assess
Gate
Request
Conversation
None
Completed by
The Business Relationship Manager for the requesting function, with the requester in the room, within days of the request arriving. The requester signs the record as an accurate account of what they asked for; the relationship layer signs it as received at the Request gate. Anyone can sign a request in, and nobody is turned away at this gate.
Inputs from
01 AI Opportunity Canvas
Feeds into
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas, 05 AI Risk and Ethics Canvas

Requests for AI arrive by every route except the one we published: a corridor conversation, a supplier demonstration, an executive who has seen something work elsewhere. By the time the work is ranked, the original words are gone and somebody else's solution has replaced them. We keep a plain record of who asked, what they said, what they have already committed and what data they mean to use, because those facts decide how much relationship capital shaping will cost and whether the first honest conversation about the request happens at Shape or at Build.

Use it when

  • A request for anything described as AI, automation, a model, a chatbot or an agent arrives by any route, including a corridor conversation.
  • A supplier or partner has pitched a tool directly to a business function and the function wants to proceed.
  • A minister, board member or executive has asked for a capability by name and someone has been told to make it happen.
  • Shadow use of a public model is discovered in a team and needs bringing inside the front door.
  • A request previously declined or parked returns in a new form or under a new sponsor.

Who is asking, by which route, and how fast

Job role, team and business function. Good tells shaping who owns the process the request sits in and whether the requester can commit their function's time to a shaping session.

The senior person who knows about the request and would answer for its outcome. Write 'none yet' where that is true; shaping needs to know before it starts.

How it reached the front door: intake form, service desk, corridor conversation, supplier pitch, executive ask, or discovered already in use. Good tells you whether the requester found the one route in or came sideways, and which door needs relabelling.

Where the relationship with this function sits now: order-taker, trusted advisor or strategic partner. It sets the tone shaping can afford to take and how much capital a pause will cost.

Anyone inside the organisation the requester has already spoken to: product management, the AI centre of excellence, the PMO, finance business partnering, legal, security, data protection. List them so shaping neither repeats nor contradicts those conversations.

The date they want it by and what sits behind it: a statute or policy deadline, a board or executive commitment, a contract expiry, a supplier offer that lapses, an announcement already made. Good separates a real external date from an appetite for speed, and says what happens if the date passes.

The request as stated

The request as the requester put it, in their phrases, quoted where you can. Good is a paragraph they would recognise as theirs; resist tidying it into your language, because the wording is evidence shaping will use.

What they say is wrong today, in whose work, and how they know. Record their diagnosis even if you suspect the process underneath is the real problem; that judgement belongs on Canvas 02.

The solution as they picture it, including any rung of the autonomy ladder they have named (a script, a chatbot, an agent) and anything they have seen demonstrated. Requests are solutions wearing a disguise; record the disguise faithfully.

What changes if it works, in their terms: time freed, cases cleared, citizens or customers served faster, errors avoided. Do not convert it to a number here; that is the value planning conversation.

Which citizens or customers, staff groups or partners live with the problem today, and roughly how many people or transactions are involved. An order of magnitude is enough.

Data involved and sensitivity class

One row per data set the request would read, write or generate. Sensitivity class: public, internal, personal, special category or protected, commercially sensitive, or classified under statute or policy. Access today records whether the requesting function can already reach the data lawfully; write 'unknown' rather than guess.

Data set or sourceSensitivity classData ownerWhere it is heldAccess today

Third parties, commercial and governance position

Any supplier, integrator, model provider or delivery partner already in the conversation, described by role rather than brand, and what they have been shown or promised. Say whether the request began as their pitch.

Whether this sits under an existing contract, a framework call-off, a free trial, a pilot agreement or nothing at all, who signed it and when it ends. Good states plainly whether a commitment already exists that shaping will have to work around.

Any budget earmarked, spent or promised, with its source and the person who committed it. Write 'none' if none; an assumed budget is worth recording as assumed.

The organisation's own systems the request would read from, write to or sit beside, described generically (case management, the finance ledger, the service management platform). This feeds the architecture and blast-radius questions later.

Any assessment started or finished: data protection or privacy impact, security review, ethics or equality assessment, accessibility, records management, legal advice. Name each document and its status, or write 'none'.

The requester's own view of who has to say yes. The gap between this list and the six gates is useful to know before shaping begins.

Triage flags

Tick every flag that applies. Flags tell shaping and risk which questions to open first and whether Risk and Ethics Canvas 05 starts in parallel; the decision itself waits for Canvas 02.

Initial triage and hand-off

Two or three sentences in your own voice: what kind of request this appears to be, what is already committed, and what shaping will have to deal with first. Describe rather than decide; the five shaping outcomes stay open until Canvas 02.

Any existing request, pilot, platform play or forgotten capability in the portfolio that overlaps. A reference is enough; shaping will test whether the need is already solved.

The shaping session booked on Canvas 02, who from the requesting function will attend, what they have been asked to bring (process documentation, sample data descriptions, the supplier proposal), and which canvases open alongside it. Good has a date within two weeks and a requester who knows why they are coming.

The plain account given to the requester of what happens next and how long it takes. One route in only works if the person who used it can see where their request went.

Intake decision

The record shaping opens. Choose one route, say why in a line, and name the owner who holds the relationship until the Shape gate signs.

One line a colleague could read without the rest of the canvas. Name the fact that decided it.

The Business Relationship Manager who holds the record, the requester relationship and the shaping date until the Shape gate signs.

The portfolio reference this request carries through every later canvas, and the date it entered the front door.

What a good one looks like

  • The requester would recognise every word of the request as stated and could sign the record without correction.
  • Every data row has a named owner and an honest 'unknown' where access has not been checked.
  • The commercial position says plainly whether a supplier, a contract or a budget is already committed, and who committed it.
  • The triage note stays descriptive and all five shaping outcomes are still open when the record is handed over.
  • The hand-off has a date and an attendee from the requesting function, and the requester has been told where their request went.

Where it goes wrong

  • Shaping at intake: rewriting the request into the answer you already favour, so the record shows your solution and the requester's words are lost.
  • Recording the requester's preferred date as a real deadline, so the authority to pause is spent before shaping starts.
  • Treating an executive or corridor request as too senior for the record, so it bypasses the one route in and surfaces at Build with money attached.
  • Leaving the data table blank on the grounds that the supplier will handle it, when the data owner and sensitivity class are the first things risk and ethics need.
Canvas 03 of 20 Assess · Request gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

ASSESS · SHOULD WE EVEN ATTEMPT THIS

AI Readiness Canvas

Decides whether the organisation is ready to attempt this piece of AI work now, should wait, or must build named prerequisites first, on the basis of evidence seen in the room rather than assurances given in it.

Stage
Assess
Gate
Shape
Conversation
None
Completed by
The Business Relationship Manager completes it in a single session with the business owner of the process and whoever can show the data and the systems rather than describe them (a data owner, an architect or a platform lead). The relationship layer signs it at the Shape gate.
Inputs from
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas
Feeds into
07 AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas, 09 AI Business Case Canvas, 20 AI Capability Roadmap Canvas

We have watched pilots funded on a persuasive demonstration stall a few months in because the data had no owner, the process lived in one person's head, or the sponsor's appetite ran out at the first awkward result. None of those failures were invisible at the start; nobody had been asked to show the evidence. This canvas asks for it before any relationship capital is spent on the case, so that a Wait costs one conversation instead of a sponsor.

Use it when

  • A request has come through Demand Shaping with a need and a proposed rung, and is heading for Rank.
  • A sponsor wants a start date before anyone has looked at the data.
  • A supplier demonstration has created appetite for a process nobody has written down.
  • A pilot already running has stalled and nobody can say which dimension failed.
  • A previous Wait or Build verdict has reached its re-assessment trigger or backstop date.

Scope of the assessment

Carry the shaped need in from Demand Shaping and fix the boundary before scoring anything. Readiness is assessed for one need, one rung and one boundary; change any of them and the scores are void.

The need beneath the request as shaped in the Demand Shaping canvas, in one sentence, with the outcome it serves. If it arrived as a solution, write the need and put the solution in brackets.

The rung this need is pitched at: deterministic script, single model call, workflow with model steps, agent with tools, or multi-agent system. Readiness is scored against this rung; a Go one rung lower is a legitimate verdict.

The process, teams, systems and data sets in scope, and the ones deliberately excluded. Name them so a second assessor would draw the same line.

What the organisation loses per month of delay, in the sponsor's own terms: hours, backlog, complaints, avoided cost, risk carried. If the honest answer is nothing, write that; it makes Wait cheap and tells the Rank gate something useful.

Readiness scores

Weights reflect the toolkit's view that data and leadership gaps are the hardest to recover once a build has started. Score in the room with the partner present, using the evidence table beside you; a dimension with no artefact behind it scores 1. Any dimension scored 1 caps the verdict at Build prerequisites first, whatever the total.

CriterionWhat a high score meansWeightScore (1 to 5 per dimension: 1 absent, 2 fragile, 3 partial, 4 present, 5 proven in daily use. Score the present state as evidenced in the room, then multiply by the weight. Maximum total is 50.)Weighted
Leadership readinessSponsorship, appetite for change, risk tolerance. 5: a named sponsor at executive or board level has accepted the number, the disruption and the first failure in the same conversation. 3: a sponsor exists but has never been asked what they would tolerate going wrong. 1: the sponsor is the requester, or nobody above the requester knows.20
Data readinessAvailability, quality, ownership, lineage, access. 5: the data is owned, documented, current, and the team that would build can already reach it under an agreed permission. 3: it exists and someone owns it, but quality or access is unproven. 1: nobody can say where it lives or who may use it.30
Process readinessDocumented, stable, repeatable. 5: two people following the written steps get the same result, and the steps have not changed in six months. 3: documented, but exceptions are handled from memory. 1: the process is a person.20
Technology readinessExisting tools, integration capability. 5: every system the work would touch exposes a supported interface the organisation already uses, and the model provider is already under contract. 3: interfaces exist but nobody has used them for this purpose. 1: the only way in is a screen or a spreadsheet export.10
People readinessSkills, adoption risk. 5: the people whose work changes asked for this, can operate and correct it, and their manager has agreed the time. 3: willing but untrained, or trained but never consulted. 1: they have not been told.20
Total100
40 to 50
Ready to attempt at the proposed rung. If any single dimension sits at 2, route that dimension alone to the prerequisites table and proceed on the rest.
28 to 39
Conditional. Attempt only one rung lower, or after the weakest dimension has been lifted to at least 3. Usually a Build prerequisites first verdict with a short list.
10 to 27
Not ready. Wait, or return the request to Demand Shaping for one of the other shaping outcomes. Do not fund a pilot to discover what this canvas already says.

Evidence behind each score

One line per dimension. Evidence is what we saw, not what we were told: a data sample, a process document, a signed decision, an interface specification, a training record. A verbal assurance is a claim and belongs in the third column.

What we saw (artefact, sample, walkthrough)Shown by, and whenGap between what we were told and what we saw
Leadership
Data
Process
Technology
People

Prerequisites to build first

Complete when any dimension scored below 3, or the verdict is Build prerequisites first. Each row is work the organisation must finish before the request can return to this gate. The owner is the role that can actually do it, which is often outside the requesting team, and the date is one the owner has agreed. Rows without an owner are wishes and do not count as prerequisites.

PrerequisiteDimension it liftsOwnerDate dueScore it should reach

Verdict

Choose one. The weakest dimension decides, and the total confirms; if the two disagree, the weakest dimension wins.

Re-assessment

Every verdict except Go needs a way back in, and Go needs a way to be revisited if the boundary changes.

The observable event that reopens this canvas: a data owner appointed, the process document signed off, the platform migration complete, a new sponsor in post. Write it so a third party could say whether it has happened. 'When things settle' does not qualify.

The role that owns calling the re-assessment, normally the Business Relationship Manager, and the partner who must be in the room for it to count. One line.

The date on which we re-assess even if the trigger has not fired, so that a Wait cannot become a quiet never. Twelve months is the outside limit.

Readiness verdict at the Shape gate

This is what the Business Relationship Manager carries into the Shape gate: the verdict, the dimension that decided it, and what would change it.

State the verdict, the total, the dimension that drove it and the artefact behind that dimension. Then say what would move the verdict to Go and by when. A sponsor should be able to read this without opening the canvas.

Where this goes next: Prioritisation and the Business Case on Go; the Capability Roadmap with the prerequisites table on Build prerequisites first; the re-assessment trigger and backstop date on Wait.

The relationship layer signs the Shape gate. Record role and date. The requester and the sponsor see the verdict and the rationale before the gate meets.

What a good one looks like

  • Every score has an artefact behind it in the evidence table; nothing scored above 1 on a verbal assurance alone.
  • The weakest dimension decided the verdict, and the rationale names it in the first sentence.
  • Each prerequisite has an owner who was in the room or has since agreed the date in writing.
  • A Wait verdict carries a trigger a third party could observe and a backstop date within twelve months.
  • The requester can repeat the verdict and the reason in their own words without disputing either.

Where it goes wrong

  • Scoring the organisation's aspiration instead of its present state: a data strategy on a slide earns nothing under data readiness.
  • Averaging away a fatal gap: a total in the top band with process scored 1 is still a Build prerequisites first verdict.
  • Letting the requester or the supplier score the canvas; both have a reason to see a 4.
  • Treating Wait as a polite decline. Wait spends nothing and keeps the relationship; a decline belongs back in Demand Shaping with reasons the requester can respect.
Canvas 04 of 20 Assess · Shape gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

ASSESS · BEFORE COMMITMENT

AI Risk and Ethics Canvas

Decides whether a shaped request carries risk or ethical exposure that must be resolved, accepted by a named role or declined before the organisation commits attention or money to it.

Stage
Assess
Gate
Shape
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the requesting business owner, bringing in the information governance, security and legal or ethics leads whenever a flag is raised. The relationship layer signs at the Shape gate; where the rating is Elevated or Significant, the accountable executive countersigns before the request can reach Commit.
Inputs from
03 AI Request Intake Canvas, 02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas
Feeds into
09 AI Business Case Canvas, 11 AI Agent Assessment Canvas, 14 AI Product Ownership Canvas

We tend to discover the risk in an AI request at the point where reversing it is expensive: after procurement, after the model has seen personal data, after a citizen or customer has acted on its output. This canvas moves that discovery to the Shape gate, where a flag costs a conversation rather than a remediation programme. It also names who answers for the outcome, because a risk with no owner is a risk nobody is managing.

Use it when

  • A request has cleared intake and any intake answer touched personal data, an external party, a live procurement or a public-facing output.
  • The shaped solution sits at the agent or multi-agent rung of the autonomy ladder, whatever the data involved.
  • The output would inform a decision about a person, a case, a supplier or a public position that would be hard to reverse.
  • An existing AI use has changed scope, rung or data source since it was last assessed.

Governance flags

Tick a flag when the statement is true, or when nobody in the room can say that it is false. A single governance flag moves the request out of Standard exposure.

Ethics and accountability flags

These flags concern the people the output touches and who answers for it. Tick honestly. A flag here creates a condition and an owner; it does not stop the request by itself.

Overall exposure rating

Choose one level. The rating follows the worst flag raised, whatever the count. Each level carries obligations the relationship layer signs for at the Shape gate.

Risk register entries

One row per flag raised. Phrase each row so it reads: because of the cause, the event may occur, leading to the effect. Response options are avoid, reduce, transfer or accept; declining the request is a form of avoid. The owner is a role, and the next review is a date or a gate.

CauseEventEffectResponse optionsSelected responseOwnerNext review

Accountable roles

Roles, never names, so the assignment survives a reorganisation. One role only for Responsible and for Accountable.

The role that completes this canvas and keeps the register current, usually the Business Relationship Manager. Good is one role with the time and the access to do it.

The single business role that answers if the system causes harm, normally the sponsoring executive or the business owner who will sign Commit. It cannot be a delivery, supplier or centre-of-excellence role.

The roles whose view the rating depends on: information governance, security, legal or ethics, and the AI centre of excellence at rung four and above. Beside each, write what it is asked to confirm.

The roles that need the rating and conditions without being asked to act: the PMO, finance business partnering, the affected service leads and, where relevant, whoever speaks to the regulator.

Conditions before Commit

Translate each selected response into a condition the Commit gate can test. A condition that cannot be evidenced is a hope, and hopes do not clear the gate.

ConditionEvidence that satisfies itConfirmed by (role)Due before

Verdict at the Shape gate

The rating above describes exposure. This block records what the Shape gate does with it, and is what the relationship layer signs.

State the deciding flag, why the rating follows from it, and what evidence would change the verdict. Good is specific enough that a reader who was not in the room could disagree with it.

One or two sentences naming the risk the organisation will still carry after every condition is met, in the words the accountable executive will sign. Good names the people affected, and what happens to them, rather than the system.

Name which canvas picks this up (business case, agent assessment or product ownership) and the date by which it must exist. Good is a date inside the next quarter, with the responsible role beside it.

What a good one looks like

  • Every raised flag has a risk register row whose cause is something the organisation can act on, and whose owner is a role that exists on the organisation chart.
  • The rating is justified by the worst flag, the rationale names that flag, and a reader who disagrees can see exactly where to argue.
  • The Accountable role is a single business role that was in the room or has been told, and it is never the builder or the supplier.
  • Every condition can be evidenced by a document, a test or a signature, and a role owns the date.
  • At least one flag prompted the question of a lower rung or an existing capability, and the answer is written down.

Where it goes wrong

  • Ticking every flag to look careful, which produces a rating nobody can act on and a register nobody reads.
  • Naming the AI centre of excellence or the model provider as Accountable. Accountability for a harmful output cannot sit with the builder or the supplier.
  • Writing responses as intentions (we will monitor for bias) rather than conditions with evidence, a confirming role and a date.
  • Treating a Standard rating as permanent. Scope, rung and data source change; the flags are re-run whenever they do.
Canvas 05 of 20 Assess · Shape gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

PRIORITISE · WHERE ATTENTION CONCENTRATES

AI Demand Value Map

Decides where relationship capital concentrates for the next quarter by plotting shaped AI demand on strategic value against volume, and settles which request types stay with a person and which are routed to structured or automated intake.

Stage
Prioritise
Gate
Rank
Conversation
Value planning
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the partner function leads in the room, drawing on the intake log and the demand shaping record; the relationship layer signs at the Rank gate.
Inputs from
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas
Feeds into
07 AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas, 08 AI Portfolio Heatmap, 10 AI Playbook Builder

Without a map, attention follows whoever asks loudest and most often, so the relationship layer spends its best hours on high-volume requests of modest worth while the few requests that would move a committed outcome wait in the same queue. The map separates the two, gives the volume a route that does not need the relationship layer, and reserves the conversation for the demand that repays it. It also forces a look at what is not yet being asked, because the partner who has raised nothing is often the one who most needs a value planning conversation.

Use it when

  • The Shape gate has produced a first batch of shaped requests and the queue needs a ranking view rather than case-by-case handling.
  • Quarterly planning, when the relationship layer decides where its hours go for the next three months.
  • Request volume from one function has grown to the point where individual handling is slipping and something has to be routed.
  • A new sponsoring executive, or a change in strategy, shifts which outcomes count as high value.
  • The portfolio heat map is due and needs a current view of demand by function.

Value against volume

Plot every request that cleared the Shape gate on the two axes. Strategic value means the request moves a committed outcome or relieves a stated constraint on money, risk appetite or capacity. Volume means how often this kind of request arrives; the size of one instance belongs on the value axis. Place each request with the partner in the room, in ranges, and let the placement be argued.

Strategic value (low to high)
Low Volume of requests (low to high)
High Volume of requests (low to high)
High
Handle individually

High value, low volume. Each request gets a named relationship owner and a booked value planning conversation. This is where relationship capital is meant to be spent; do not template it.

Structured intake, oversight at decision points

High value, high volume. Build a standard route with a person at the Shape, Commit and Review gates. Volume justifies a standard path; value justifies keeping judgement inside it.

Low
Decline, redirect or defer

Low value, low volume. Decline with reasons the requester can respect, redirect to capability the organisation already owns, or defer to a dated review. Record the reason so the request does not return under a new name.

Automate the route

Low value, high volume. Route through self-service or a deterministic script with no relationship time attached. Measure throughput and complaints, and review the routing rule each quarter.

Volume of requests (low to high)

List each shaped request by its reference and the quadrant it lands in. Good means every item that cleared the Shape gate is placed and nothing is parked on a line between quadrants.

Write the one-line test used to call a request high value, for example: it moves an outcome the sponsoring executive has committed to. Good means the same test was applied to every request.

State the line that separates high volume from low, as requests per quarter or as a band. Good means the figure comes from the intake log and not from impression.

Partner-function inventory

One row per partner function that has raised, or should be raising, AI demand. Fill it from the intake log and the demand shaping record, then correct it with the partner in the room. Value potential is a range, never a point estimate.

FunctionRequests last quarterDominant quadrantValue potential if shaped (range)Relationship maturity (order-taker, trusted advisor, strategic partner)Attention received now (high, medium, low)

Reading the inventory

Name the two or three functions at the top of the volume column and say what most of their requests are for beneath the stated solution. Good means you can name the need beneath the count.

Name the two or three functions whose shaped demand, if built with a number attached, would move a committed outcome. Good means each one can be traced to an outcome named on the opportunity canvas.

Functions on the value list that are absent from the volume list are under-served partners; functions on the volume list that are absent from the value list are consuming attention they do not repay. Write what that tells you about who asks and who does not. Good means each function named here appears on one list only and carries a one-line consequence for next quarter's attention.

Emerging demand not yet requested

Anticipatory demand: signals that a request is forming but has not reached the front door. Sources include strategy papers, budget submissions, regulator statements, shadow use of consumer tools, and corridor conversations. Shadow use is a leak point in the value flow; naming it here is how it re-enters the loop.

Signal observedSourceFunction likely to askLikely quadrantAction before it arrives

Routing rules for the quarter

Request types assigned to the bottom-right quadrant. Write the rule that decides membership and the exception path back to a person. Good means a requester can tell in advance which route they are on.

Request types assigned to the top-right quadrant. State which gates are form-driven and which are held by a named person, and who that person is. Good means volume gets a route and judgement stays where the consequences are.

Request types kept with a named relationship owner regardless of where volume would otherwise send them, and the reason: blast radius, harm to a citizen or customer, exposure under statute or policy, or a partner relationship being repaired. Good means the list is short and each entry carries a reason.

Functions or request types that received relationship time last quarter and will not this quarter, and how that is being said to them. Good means the partner hears it from the relationship owner, with the alternative route, before they notice the silence.

Attention priority for next quarter

The decision the relationship layer signs at the Rank gate and carries into prioritisation and the portfolio heat map.

Rank the functions and named requests that receive booked value planning conversations and a named relationship owner this quarter. Good means it can be defended in one sentence and matches the top two quadrants of the map.

Why these and not the loudest; what is being given up; the counterfactual if attention were left where it is. Good means a sceptical minister, board or executive could read it and see the trade.

Who signs at the Rank gate, the date, and when the map is redrawn: quarterly at the latest, or sooner when a signal in the anticipatory table matures into a request.

What a good one looks like

  • Every request that cleared the Shape gate sits in one quadrant, placed with the same value test and the same volume threshold, and the partner who raised it has seen where it landed.
  • The volume list and the value list are visibly different, and the difference has been read as information about who asks and who does not.
  • The anticipatory table has entries, including at least one instance of shadow use, and each has an action that happens before a request is raised.
  • The routing rules let a requester predict which route they are on, and the exception path back to a person is written down.
  • The attention decision names fewer functions than the inventory, states what is being withdrawn, and has been signed by the relationship layer with a redraw date.

Where it goes wrong

  • Plotting by who shouts: volume measured by meeting invitations rather than the intake log, so the map reproduces the current allocation of attention instead of correcting it.
  • Calling everything high value because the sponsoring function is senior, which leaves the top half of the map full and the decision unmade.
  • Automating the route for high-volume demand and then never reading the throughput or the complaints, so a broken process underneath is scaled rather than fixed.
  • Leaving the anticipatory table empty because nobody has asked yet, which is precisely the reason it exists.
Canvas 06 of 20 Prioritise · Rank gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

PRIORITISE · VALUE IS NOT PRIORITY

AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas

Decides where a shaped use case sits against every other item competing for the organisation's attention, and whether it ranks now, holds, merges or is declined, with reasons the sponsor can follow.

Stage
Prioritise
Gate
Rank
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the sponsoring executive or their delegate in the room, using the demand shaping outcome, the readiness verdict and the value map as inputs. The relationship layer signs the Rank gate. The sponsor's view is recorded on the canvas but the sponsor does not sign, and the PMO records the position once it is signed.
Inputs from
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas, 04 AI Readiness Canvas, 06 AI Demand Value Map
Feeds into
08 AI Portfolio Heatmap, 09 AI Business Case Canvas

Every shaped request arrives with a value claim attached, and most sponsors read their own claim as a rank. We score against the whole portfolio because the teams, data owners and approval routes are shared, so an item that ranks without displacing anything has been listed, not ranked. When the answer is hold or decline, the written reasons are what let us hold the position without losing the sponsor.

Use it when

  • A shaped use case has its readiness verdict and value range, and the sponsor is asking for a build date.
  • The portfolio cycle (quarterly in most organisations) rescores every ranked item against the same criteria and weights.
  • Two parts of the organisation want the same scarce team or data owner in the same period.
  • A minister, board or executive names a favourite and asks why it is not at the top.
  • An item returns from the Review gate short of its number and the portfolio needs to know what moves up.

The item being ranked

Carry these in from earlier canvases. Nothing here is re-estimated in this session; if a value is missing, the item is not ready to rank.

The identifier the front door gave it at Request and the shaped title agreed at Shape. One line.

The need beneath the request in the words agreed at Shape: who is served, what changes for them, and what happens if nothing is done.

The rung from the autonomy ladder agreed at Shape. If the requester still wants a higher rung, write both and the reason given.

Go, Wait or Build prerequisites first, carried from the readiness canvas, with the date it was given. A Wait verdict caps the item at the hold band unless the prerequisite has a funded owner.

The potential value range from the value map and the probability the relationship layer assigned to it. Ranges only; a point estimate goes back to the value planning conversation.

Build and run cost to reach the first measurement at the agreed rung, as a range with the currency. Include the cost of the people who will change how they work.

Weighted score

Score each criterion with the sponsor present and write a one-line reason beside every score. Complexity and risk are entered so that higher means worse and reversed before weighting. Use the total to order the conversation with the sponsor, then record the outcome in the decision block.

CriterionWhat a high score meansWeightScore (1 to 5 per criterion. For six criteria 5 is best. For complexity and risk enter 5 for the worst case and reverse it (6 minus the entry) before multiplying by weight. Weights total 100, so the maximum is 500 and the minimum is 100.)Weighted
Strategic alignmentHigh: the outcome is named in a stated ambition or constraint from the leadership layer and the sponsor can point to the line. Low: alignment is asserted by the requester and nobody above them has said so.150
Financial impactHigh: a cashable or avoided-cost benefit stated as a range, with a baseline the finance business partner accepts. Low: quality or strategic benefit only, or a point estimate with no baseline.150
Citizen or customer impactHigh: a measurable change in something the citizen or customer experiences (waiting time, accuracy, access, fairness). Low: internal convenience with no traceable path to the person served.150
ComplexityHigher means worse. Score 5 when it needs the top two rungs, several systems and integrations that do not exist yet; score 1 for a script or a single model call on a documented, stable process.100
RiskHigher means worse. Score 5 when the blast radius reaches a person's rights, money or safety and the risk and ethics canvas still has open responses; score 1 when a person reads every output and a failure is reversible the same day.150
Speed to valueHigh: first measured outcome inside six months on the process as it stands. Low: value depends on a prerequisite build, a data agreement or a procurement that has not started.100
Data availabilityHigh: the data exists, has a named owner, is accessible to the build team and its quality is known. Low: data must be collected, cleaned or negotiated before anything can be built.100
Executive sponsorshipHigh: a named executive has said the number aloud and will own the change in their own area. Low: sponsorship is inferred from an enthusiastic requester or a passing remark in a meeting.100
Total1000
400 to 500
Front of the portfolio. Rank now, take it to Commit, and name what it displaces.
300 to 399
Contender. Rank now only if the two lowest criteria have a named fix and a date; otherwise hold and rescore next cycle.
200 to 299
Hold or merge. The need may be real, but the portfolio has better uses of the same attention; look for a platform play it can join.
100 to 199
Decline with reasons, or return it to Shape if the need was never properly surfaced.

Portfolio position

The portfolio is every item ranked across the organisation this cycle. A position inside one directorate's backlog does not count.

Its place among every item ranked this cycle, written as n of N, with the cycle date. The PMO must hold the same N.

The item that drops a place, loses a team or waits a quarter if this ranks. Name it and its owner. If nothing moves, a list has grown and the gate has not been exercised.

The nearest neighbours in the ranking and the single criterion that separates each from this item. This is the line a sponsor challenges first, so have it ready.

The scarce team, data owner, approval route or platform slot this draws on, and which other ranked items draw on the same. Contention here moves rank more than the score does.

Any item in the portfolio serving the same need, the same data or the same rung, and whether one platform play could carry both. Write none only if you looked.

Whether ranking this crowds a rung, a theme or a supplier the organisation is already heavy in, or fills a gap the leadership layer has named.

Sponsor's view versus the score

Record the disagreement before resolving it. A sponsor who sees their own view written fairly will accept a position they did not choose.

Where the sponsoring executive placed the item before seeing the weighted total. Write it down without arguing with it yet.

Each criterion where the sponsor's score and the room's score differ by two points or more, with both numbers.

The evidence or context behind the sponsor's higher or lower view that the criteria did not capture. Write it so the sponsor would recognise it as fair.

The criterion result the sponsor discounts and why the room holds to it. It is usually data availability, risk or the absence of a named owner for the change.

Any criterion score changed after the conversation, the new value and the evidence that moved it. A change without new evidence is recorded as a disagreement and the original score stands.

Whether the relationship layer holds the score against the sponsor's view or concedes, and what the relationship asks of the sponsor in return: a named change owner, a baseline, a data agreement.

Before the gate is signed

Rank gate decision

The relationship layer signs. The score, the position and the reasons travel to the portfolio heatmap; a ranked item goes on to the business case with its number and its named owner still to be committed.

The weighted total out of 500 and the position as n of N, on one line, with the cycle date.

Three sentences at most: the criteria that decided the position, the item it displaces or joins, and what would move it. Written for the sponsor to repeat to their minister, board or executive without you in the room.

The role in the relationship layer that signs the Rank gate, and the date. The sponsor's view is recorded above; the sponsor does not sign this gate.

What a good one looks like

  • Every criterion score has a one-line reason a stranger could audit, and the harder, riskier item reads higher on complexity and risk.
  • The portfolio position names what it displaces, and that item's owner already knows.
  • The sponsor's disagreement is written in terms they would accept, and a score changed only where new evidence arrived.
  • The decision is one of the four, and a hold or a decline carries the condition that would reopen it.
  • The same weights and scale appear on every canvas ranked in the cycle, so positions compare across directorates.

Where it goes wrong

  • Ranking within one directorate's backlog and calling it the portfolio; the position means nothing because nothing else was in the room.
  • Scoring complexity and risk as if higher were better, which lifts the hardest, riskiest item to the top of the cycle.
  • Letting the sponsor's rank overwrite the score without new evidence, which spends the relationship layer's credibility on one relationship.
  • Treating the weighted total as the decision, so the reasons are never written and the requester hears a number instead of an argument.
Canvas 07 of 20 Prioritise · Rank gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

PRIORITISE · THE EXECUTIVE VIEW

AI Portfolio Heatmap

Decides what the AI portfolio actually contains, where it overlaps, concentrates or sits ownerless, and the three portfolio moves leadership is asked to make.

Stage
Prioritise
Gate
Rank
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager who holds the Rank gate, with the PMO supplying gate status and milestone dates and finance business partnering supplying cost bands. The relationship layer signs, as at every Rank decision. The sponsoring executive receives the three decisions and carries them to the forum.
Inputs from
06 AI Demand Value Map, 07 AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas
Feeds into
20 AI Capability Roadmap Canvas, 19 AI Value Realisation Review

Ranking one request at a time never shows the shape of the whole. We end up with several teams building the same summariser, a pilot nobody owns still renewing its licences, and a board that has watched many demos and never seen a portfolio. This canvas puts every initiative on one page so that the Rank gate is a conversation about the portfolio, and so that the decisions it asks for are the ones only leadership can take.

Use it when

  • Before any portfolio review, investment committee or executive session where AI is on the agenda
  • When the intake log from Canvas 03 holds more open requests than the relationship layer can shape one at a time
  • When two or more requests from different functions describe the same capability
  • At each refresh point set at the foot of this canvas, and after any Commit or Review gate changes an initiative's status
  • When a minister, board or executive asks what the organisation is doing on AI and nobody can answer on one page

The portfolio on one page

One row per initiative consuming money, licences or attention: everything that has passed the Request gate, plus the shadow use you know about and the pilots nobody closed. Pre-populate from Canvases 05, 06 and 07 before the session, so the ninety minutes are spent checking rows and reading the shape. Value range is the low and high end of potential value from Canvas 06. Risk rating carries over from Canvas 05. Cost band uses the bands finance business partnering already recognises. Rung is the autonomy ladder position, 1 to 5, for anything being built, and the service stage (pilot, live, retiring) for anything already running. Owner is a named person with a role; where there is none, write none.

InitiativeSponsor functionGate reachedValue rangeRisk ratingCost bandRung or maturityNamed ownerReview date

What the shape tells us

Read the table before interpreting it. Sort it twice, once by sponsor function and once by rung, then write down what you see with row numbers so that the observation survives without you in the room.

Groups of rows that share a capability, a data set or a user population, listed by row number with the shared thing named. Good is three or four clusters with a one-line reason each; a cluster that contains most of the table is telling you nothing.

Pairs or groups of rows solving the same need for different sponsors. State which is furthest through the gates and what the others would lose by joining it. Good describes the shared need in the requester's own words.

Outcomes in the prioritised strategic demand from leadership that have no row at all. Write each as the outcome it serves. Good is honest about whether the gap is a lack of demand or a lack of a route in.

Where value, cost or risk piles into one function, one supplier or one rung of the ladder. One sentence per concentration and what breaks if that one thing fails. Good separates concentration we chose from concentration that happened to us.

Candidate platform plays

One of the five outcomes of shaping is to merge several requests into a small number of platform plays worth funding properly. Use the clusters and duplicates above to name them. A platform play is a shared capability with one owner and one number; a programme label with several owners behind it is a cluster that has not yet been decided.

Platform playRows merging into itShared capabilityCombined value rangeProposed ownerWhat each requester gives up

Orphaned initiatives

An orphan is any row with no named owner, no committed number, or both. These are the leak points in the value flow: pilots that never scaled, shadow use nobody measures, licences renewing on their own. List every one, however small. Proposed action is adopt (an owner and a number within an agreed period), pause, or retire.

Row numberWhat is missingWho uses it todayCost it is carryingProposed actionDecision needed from

Three decisions for leadership

A board or executive can hold three portfolio decisions in one sitting. Choose the three that only they can take: merging plays across functional lines, retiring something a peer sponsors, moving money between cost bands, or accepting a concentration of risk. Frame each as a choice with a recommendation; an update invites nodding and commits nobody.

The choice in one sentenceOptions consideredOur recommendation and whyWhat it costs or freesWho is affected
Decision one
Decision two
Decision three

What we take to the forum

This is the page leadership sees. Choose the portfolio stance the table supports, write the ask in one sentence, and name who carries it and when the table is next refreshed.

What leadership is being asked to decide, in words a minister, board or executive can repeat back. Good names the decision and its consequence and leaves the technology out.

The sponsoring executive who presents this, the forum it goes to, and the date. Good is a person with the standing to be refused.

How often the table is re-plotted and by whom: gate status monthly from the intake log, a full re-plot each quarter, and always after a Review gate at month nine. Good names one person who owns the refresh.

What a good one looks like

  • Every initiative consuming money or attention is on the table, including the ones nobody asked permission for.
  • Rows are pre-populated from Canvases 05, 06 and 07, so the session is spent reading the shape and checking rows rather than filling cells.
  • Each cluster and duplicate is written with row numbers, so a reader who was not in the room can check it against the table.
  • Platform plays have a proposed owner and a combined value range; orphans have a proposed action and the person who must decide it.
  • The three decisions are choices only leadership can take, each with a recommendation the relationship layer will stand behind.

Where it goes wrong

  • Plotting only what came through the front door. The shadow use and the forgotten pilots are what leadership most needs to see.
  • Writing value as a single figure. A point estimate on a heatmap reads as a promise; a range reads as a judgement.
  • Presenting a page of observations and no decisions. Without the three asks, the table is a status report and leadership will treat it as one.
  • Building it once for a board paper and never refreshing it, so the next portfolio conversation starts from memory.
Canvas 08 of 20 Prioritise · Rank gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DESIGN · A NAMED OWNER AND A NUMBER

AI Business Case Canvas

Decides whether a shaped and ranked AI request earns funding, by putting a named business owner and a committed number on one page that a governance or funding forum can accept or refuse.

Stage
Design
Gate
Commit
Conversation
Value planning
Completed by
Drafted by the Business Relationship Manager with the prospective business owner and the finance business partner in the room, and with the centre of excellence or delivery lead available for the investment figures. Signed at the Commit gate by the relationship layer; the named business owner countersigns the number.
Inputs from
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas, 04 AI Readiness Canvas, 05 AI Risk and Ethics Canvas, 07 AI Use Case Prioritisation Canvas
Feeds into
10 AI Playbook Builder, 14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 18 AI Benefits Realisation Canvas, 16 AI Adoption Canvas

Most AI ideas die here, and many of the ones that survive die later because nobody wrote down what they were for. We have watched cases pass on enthusiasm, with benefits described as adjectives and the owner named as a team. When month nine arrives and the review gate asks whether the number arrived, there is no number and no one who agreed to it, so the loop never closes and the next case is argued from the same blank page.

Use it when

  • A request has cleared Shape and Rank and the sponsoring executive wants it on the next funding forum agenda.
  • The prioritisation canvas placed it in the fund-now band and someone has to write the case.
  • A pilot has run out of its seed money and wants to scale on a proper budget.
  • A supplier or centre of excellence has quoted a build cost and the business side has not yet stated what it is worth.
  • A previous case was refused and is coming back with revised numbers.

The problem and its cost today

Write this from the point of view of the people who have the problem, not the people who want the tool. If the shaping canvas already surfaced the need beneath the request, carry that wording across.

Two or three sentences describing what goes wrong, for whom, and how often. Good: a specific activity, a specific group of staff or citizens or customers, and a frequency. Poor: a restatement of the requested solution.

The teams, roles, citizens or customers who carry the problem now, and roughly how many of them. Name roles, not individuals.

Split into time, money, quality and risk. Give a range for each where you can, in the organisation's own units (hours per week, cases reworked, complaints, findings). This is the baseline every benefit will be measured against, so if you cannot state it, say so and record how you will establish it.

What happens if we do nothing for the next 12 to 24 months. If the honest answer is that nothing much changes, the case is weak and the forum should hear that here rather than discover it.

Describe the same activity after the change, in words a minister, board member or executive would use. Say what people stop doing, what they start doing, and which rung of the autonomy ladder the design sits on. No product names.

Three or fewer conditions that, if met at month nine, mean this worked. Each must be observable and tie to a row in the benefits table below.

Benefits, typed and ranged

One row per benefit. Type each as cashable, non-cashable, avoided cost, quality or strategic. Every row needs a beneficiary who will be asked at month nine whether it arrived, a baseline drawn from the cost-of-problem field, and a target written as a range. Benefits are realised by the organisation after handover, not by the project team, so the beneficiary column is doing real work.

BenefitTypeBeneficiaryMeasureBaselineTarget rangeWhen

Investment and alternatives

Costs first, then the options the forum will ask about anyway. The lower rung row is mandatory: state what the next rung down on the autonomy ladder would deliver and cost, because most requests that arrive asking for an agent are solved two rungs down.

ItemYear oneOngoing per yearBasis of estimateConfidence
Build
Run and support
Licences and model usage
People and capacity
Change and adoption
Total
Alternative: do nothing
Alternative: lower rung
Alternative: existing capability or platform play

Risks and disproof

Seek disproof before approval. Spend thirty minutes of the session here and carry the material risks from the risk and ethics canvas rather than re-deriving them.

Up to five, each as cause, event, effect, with the selected response and an owner. Include at least one delivery risk, one adoption risk and one risk to the citizen, customer or regulator position.

It is twelve months on and this failed. Write the story of what happened in the past tense, as the review gate would tell it. Then list the two or three earliest signs that story was coming true and who watches for them.

State the committed number as a range and say what you believe sits at the low end, the likely point and the high end. Separate benefit potential from benefit probability.

The two or three assumptions that, if wrong, move the range most (adoption rate, volume, data quality, unit cost at scale). For each, say how and when it will be tested.

Any Wait or Build prerequisites first verdicts from the readiness canvas that must be cleared before build starts, and who clears them.

What the centre of excellence, the PMO, product management and finance business partnering have each agreed to do, in one line each. Blank lines are a finding.

Commit gate checks

Every item must be true before the case goes to the forum. A no on any line returns the canvas to the drafting table, not the forum.

Commit gate decision

This is the page the practitioner walks into the forum with. The canvas ends with a named business owner and a number, or it does not end.

One person by role, who will answer at month nine for whether the number arrived and who is changing how they work. Not a team, not the project manager, not the supplier.

The single range the organisation is committing to, in its own units, with the review date. Example form: a range of hours returned per month by month nine, or a range of avoided cost in year two.

Three sentences: what we recommend, why this option over the alternatives, and what the forum is being asked to accept as uncertain.

What a good one looks like

  • A forum member who has never heard of the request can read the first section and repeat the problem back correctly.
  • Every benefit row has a beneficiary by role, a baseline with a source, and a target written as a range with a date.
  • The do-nothing and lower-rung alternatives are costed honestly enough that the recommendation has to argue against them.
  • The pre-mortem names failure modes the risk section had not already listed, and someone is watching for the early signs.
  • The output block names one person and one range, and the month-nine review is already in two diaries.

Where it goes wrong

  • Benefits written as adjectives (faster, better, more consistent) with no measure, baseline or beneficiary, which makes the review gate impossible before it is reached.
  • Investment costed at pilot volume, so licence and model usage costs at real volume arrive as a surprise in year two.
  • The lower rung listed as an alternative but never costed, so the forum cannot tell whether the agent is needed or merely wanted.
  • The business owner recorded as a directorate or a project manager, leaving nobody to answer at month nine.
Canvas 09 of 20 Design · Commit gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DESIGN · DECISION LOGIC FOR THE ROUTE

AI Playbook Builder

Writes down, for one category of AI request, the rules that decide whether a request routes itself, needs the relationship layer, or escalates beyond it, so the front door answers the same question the same way every time.

Stage
Design
Gate
Commit to Build
Conversation
None
Completed by
Drafted by the Business Relationship Manager who owns the category, in a ninety-minute session with the category's business owner and whoever administers the intake tooling. The relationship layer signs the route logic; the sponsoring executive signs the escalation conditions; the person who will maintain the playbook signs the change log entry that creates it.
Inputs from
06 AI Demand Value Map, 09 AI Business Case Canvas
Feeds into
14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 13 AI Prompt Governance Canvas

We keep meeting front doors where the routing lives in one person's head, and the day that person is on leave the queue either stops or gets waved through. When an organisation then adds an automated intake layer on top of unwritten rules, it automates the inconsistency. Without this canvas, automation is faster randomness. The playbook is the artefact that lets a person own the rules and a system apply them.

Use it when

  • A category of AI request has arrived at the front door three or more times and is being handled differently each time
  • An automated intake, triage or ticketing layer is about to be configured to route AI requests
  • A business case has committed a platform play that will generate repeat requests of a predictable type
  • A regulator, audit function or board asks how AI requests are approved and by whom
  • An existing playbook is at its review date or a friction point has changed its shape

Category and ownership

Name the category by the need beneath it, not the tool asked for: for example, drafting correspondence from case records, or summarising inbound documents for triage. One playbook per category; if two needs share a name, split them.

The role in the relationship layer that maintains this playbook and answers for its routing decisions. A named role, not a team inbox.

The role that owns the outcome for this category and carries the number at the Commit gate. Good is the same role that signed the business case.

The rung on the autonomy ladder that solves most requests in this category (deterministic script, single model call, workflow with model steps, agent with tools, multi-agent). State the lowest rung that works; requests above it are engagement triggers, not defaults.

Roughly how many requests per month, from which parts of the organisation, and whether they arrive as tickets, conversations or side-door asks. Ranges are fine; the point is to know whether routing rules will be exercised weekly or yearly.

Requests that resemble this category but belong elsewhere, and where they go instead. Prevents the playbook silently absorbing neighbouring demand.

Route logic

Three columns, read left to right. A request meets the first column it fails to clear. Write each condition so a person or a system could test it without judgement; where judgement is required, that is itself an engagement trigger.

The conditions that must all hold for a request to self-serve or route without the relationship layer touching it: data classification within an agreed tier, no citizen or customer facing output, rung at or below the typical rung, cost per task under a stated ceiling, a pre-approved pattern already in the catalogue. Good is a list of five to eight testable conditions, each with the evidence the requester must supply.

The conditions that pull the request into a shaping conversation with the relationship layer: rung above the typical rung, a new data source, an outcome nobody has committed a number to, a request that is a solution wearing a disguise, or a requester who has asked twice before. Good states what the trigger is and what the conversation is meant to settle.

The conditions under which the relationship layer cannot decide alone and the request goes to the sponsoring executive, the risk and ethics forum, legal, or the regulator-facing function: decisions affecting individual rights, statutory duties, external publication, contract or supplier change, or a blast radius beyond one service. State who receives it and the maximum time before they respond.

Sign-offs and audit trail

One row per route. The audit trail column is mandatory for every route including the automatic one; a request that leaves no trace cannot be reviewed at month nine.

RouteWho signs before buildWho signs before releaseWhat the requester must evidenceMandatory audit trail (what is recorded, where, for how long)
Automatic route
Engaged route
Escalated route

Friction map

Where requests in this category stall today, and an honest answer on whether routing can absorb the stall or the process underneath needs fixing first. A playbook that routes around a broken process routes people into it faster.

Where requests stallCause (missing owner, missing data, missing decision, missing capacity)Routing mitigates (how)Upstream redesign required (what, who owns it)Decision: route around or fix first

Review cadence and change log

How often the playbook is reread against actual routing outcomes, and the trigger events that force an earlier review (a new data source, a change in statute or policy, an incident, a shift in the typical rung). Good is a stated interval of no more than 6 months plus named triggers.

What will show the playbook is working: proportion of requests routed without rework, time from request to route decision, number of escalations later found unnecessary, number of automatic routes later found unsafe. Structural measures only; no targets invented in the room.

Which parts of the route logic the intake tooling is permitted to apply automatically, and which must remain a human decision regardless of what the tooling could do. Write it as a boundary the tooling administrator can configure to.

Version, date, what changed, why, who approved. The first entry is the creation of this playbook. Every later routing change must be logged before it is applied to the tooling, never after.

Playbook decision

What the relationship layer takes to the Commit to Build gate and hands to whoever configures the intake tooling.

The option chosen and the two or three conditions that drove it. A reader who was not in the room should be able to see why the other options were not taken.

Playbook owner, business owner, and the tooling administrator who will configure to the automation boundary. Roles, with the date each accepted.

The date this playbook is reread against outcomes, and the earliest trigger event that could bring it forward.

What a good one looks like

  • Every automatic route condition could be tested by a person with no context, or by a system, using evidence the requester supplied
  • The escalation column names who receives the request and how long they have, not just that escalation exists
  • The audit trail row for the automatic route is as specific as the one for the escalated route
  • At least one friction point is marked fix first, with an upstream owner, rather than routed around
  • The automation boundary is written so the tooling administrator could configure to it without a further meeting

Where it goes wrong

  • Writing the automatic conditions as adjectives (low risk, simple, standard) that only the author can apply
  • Treating the friction map as a complaint list and marking every stall as something routing will absorb
  • Letting the tooling be configured first and back-filling the playbook to match what it already does
  • Creating one playbook for all AI requests, which makes every route an engagement trigger and puts the relationship layer back in the queue
Canvas 10 of 20 Design · Commit to Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DESIGN · SHAPE THE AUTONOMY, NOT JUST THE ASK

AI Agent Assessment Canvas

Decides how much autonomy this piece of work actually needs, and what governance that rung deserves, before anyone commits money or a build team to an agent.

Stage
Design
Gate
Commit
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the requesting partner, the AI centre of excellence (or equivalent technical lead) and the data or security owner in the room. The relationship layer signs the chosen rung at Commit; the named business owner signs the conditions; delivery signs at Build that the conditions have been engineered in.
Inputs from
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas, 05 AI Risk and Ethics Canvas
Feeds into
14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 13 AI Prompt Governance Canvas, 12 AI Vendor Evaluation Canvas

Most requests that arrive as "build us an agent" are solved two rungs down the ladder, and the ones that genuinely need the top rung are usually approved without anyone naming what the agent may touch, who approves its actions, or what a task costs at volume. We use this canvas to settle those questions while the answers are still cheap. An agent that is scoped after it has been built is scoped by its first incident.

Use it when

  • A shaped request (canvas 2) names an agent, a copilot, an assistant or any system that will act rather than only answer
  • A partner asks for something to run without a person in the loop, or to call other systems on its own
  • A supplier or platform team proposes an agentic feature and wants a business owner to sign
  • An existing single-model or workflow build is being asked to take on its own steps or its own tool calls
  • The risk and ethics screen (canvas 5) flagged autonomy, external actions or a wide data scope as an open question

Choose the rung

Ask for the lowest rung that solves it. Cost per task, blast radius and difficulty of evaluation all rise as you climb. Mark one rung as chosen and say why each lower rung fails the need, not the request.

Cost per task, blast radius and the difficulty of evaluation all rise with each rung. Ask for the lowest rung that solves it.

Name the rung. Good: one rung, stated plainly, with the job it is being asked to do in one line.

For each rung below the chosen one, one sentence on what part of the need it cannot meet. Good: the reasons cite the work, not the request wording or the supplier's pitch.

What happens if we stop one rung lower and accept the residual manual effort. Good: an honest cost of the cheaper option, which often turns out to be acceptable.

What it may decide and do

The first agent question: what is it allowed to touch. Separate decisions taken alone from actions performed, and list systems by name of function rather than brand.

Decisions the agent may take with no person involved, each with the boundary that keeps it small (value limit, case type, confidence threshold). Good: a short list; if it runs long, the rung is probably too high.

Each action it may perform and the system it calls to do so, including whether it reads, writes, sends or spends. Good: every write and every send is listed separately from every read.

The data it may see, by category and by record set, and what it must never see. Good: the scope is the minimum the task needs, and the exclusions are explicit.

The credentials and access it runs under, and whether they are its own or borrowed from a person. Good: least privilege, its own identity, no standing access it does not use.

Approval points by step

The second agent question: who approves what it does, and at which step. Walk the task step by step and mark where a person must say yes before the agent continues.

Step in the taskWhat the agent does herePerson who approvesWhat they see before approvingWhat happens on refusal

Failure and blast radius

Seek disproof before approval. Spend a short pre-mortem naming how this goes wrong and how far the damage travels before anyone notices.

Failure mode (cause and event)Effect on citizen, customer or colleagueBlast radius (records, money, hours affected before detection)Detection methodContainment step

Cost and evaluation

The third and fourth agent questions. Work in ranges, not point estimates, and decide how you will know it worked before go-live rather than after.

Low and high estimate of one completed task including model calls, tool calls, retries and human review time. Good: a range with the assumptions that drive the high end.

Expected monthly task count multiplied through, plus what changes if volume doubles. Good: shows the point where the cost stops being trivial.

What a completed task is worth against the value plan (canvas 6), so the cost range can be read as a margin. Good: a plain statement of whether the margin survives the high-cost case.

The test cases, including deliberately awkward ones, the agent must pass before go-live, and the pass threshold. Good: cases drawn from real past work, not invented examples.

The measure that tells us in production that tasks are completing correctly, checked by whom and how often. Good: a signal that would show a slow drift, not only a loud failure.

The person who runs the evaluation before go-live and owns the live signal after. Good: a name and a role, sitting in the business, not in the build team.

Escalation, kill switch and rollback

Who the agent hands to when it is unsure or blocked, and who a person contacts when it misbehaves, with response times. Good: a route that works out of hours.

Who can stop it, how quickly, and by what means (a control a named person can reach without engineering help). Good: tested before go-live, not described.

How actions already taken are reversed or corrected, and what cannot be undone. Good: the irreversible actions are the ones with an approval point above.

The events that reopen this canvas: scope change, new tool, volume increase, incident, or model change by the provider. Good: a short list with an owner for watching it.

Commit decision: approved rung and conditions

This is what the relationship layer takes into the Commit gate. Delivery may not raise the rung without returning here.

The approval points, permissions, evaluation threshold and kill switch that must be in place before go-live, as a numbered list delivery can sign against.

The person accountable for the agent's outcomes after handover, who owns the live success signal and the review trigger.

Why this rung, why these conditions, and what we chose not to allow. Written so a board or executive can read it without the canvas.

What a good one looks like

  • One rung is chosen, and the reasons the lower rungs fail refer to the work itself rather than to what was asked for
  • Every write, send or spend the agent may perform has a matching approval point or an explicit statement that it runs alone within a stated limit
  • The cost range is honest at the high end and has been read against value per task, so the margin is visible
  • The evaluation set exists as real cases before go-live, and a named person in the business owns the live signal
  • The kill switch has been tried by the person who holds it, not merely documented

Where it goes wrong

  • Accepting the rung the request arrived at because the supplier or the sponsor has already used the word agent
  • Listing what the agent reads but not what it writes, sends or spends, which is where the blast radius lives
  • Recording a single cost per task and forgetting retries, tool calls and the human review time that makes the number real
  • Treating the evaluation as something the build team will do later, so the first real test is the first real incident
Canvas 11 of 20 Design · Commit gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DESIGN · BEFORE THE CONTRACT

AI Vendor Evaluation Canvas

Decides whether a named AI supplier or platform can meet the shaped need on terms we can live with, and on what conditions the relationship layer will support the commitment.

Stage
Design
Gate
Commit to Build
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the business owner, the AI centre of excellence lead and the procurement or commercial lead in the room. Data protection, security and architecture contribute evidence. The relationship layer signs the value verdict at the Commit gate; procurement signs the commercial terms; delivery signs the build implications at the Build gate.
Inputs from
11 AI Agent Assessment Canvas, 09 AI Business Case Canvas
Feeds into
14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 20 AI Capability Roadmap Canvas

Suppliers are evaluated on the demo, and the demo is built to be evaluated. We then discover at month nine that the product answers a different question from the one we shaped, that our data has been feeding the supplier's models, and that leaving would cost more than staying. This canvas keeps the value questions with the relationship layer and the commercial questions with procurement, so neither side signs for the other.

Use it when

  • A business case (canvas 9) names buy or partner as the preferred route and a shortlist exists
  • A supplier has offered a pilot, proof of concept or free tier and someone wants to accept it
  • An existing platform we own has switched on an AI feature and the owner wants to adopt it at scale
  • Procurement has opened a tender or framework call-off for an AI-enabled service
  • A request arrived as 'we have already chosen the vendor' and no evaluation has been recorded

The need we are buying against

Copy the shaped need in, not the supplier's description of their product. Everything below is scored against this.

The need from canvas 2 and the number from canvas 9, in our words. Good: 'Reduce the time a caseworker spends assembling a case file, target range agreed, owner named.' Bad: any sentence containing the product name.

The autonomy rung from canvas 11 (1 to 5). Record whether the supplier's product sits on that rung or higher. A product two rungs above the need brings cost, blast radius and evaluation difficulty we did not ask for.

Ask the supplier to define, in writing, what 'agent', 'AI-powered', 'autonomous' and 'learns' mean in this product: what it touches, who approves what, at which step. Record their answer verbatim and note where it differs from ours.

Name any platform, licence or team we already have that covers part of this need. Good: an honest statement of the overlap and what the supplier adds beyond it. Empty is a warning sign, not a clean sheet.

Two organisations of similar size and regulation, using the product for a comparable need, spoken to without the supplier present. What did they say about the gap between the demo and month nine?

What happens to the shaped need if we do not buy this. If the honest answer is 'nothing much', return to canvas 9 before spending further evaluation effort.

Data, security and assurance

Evidence, not assurances. Each field records what the supplier has shown us, who verified it and what remains unproven.

Where our data is stored and processed, in which jurisdictions, and who else can see it (sub-processors, the model provider). Good: a named data flow diagram reviewed by our data protection lead, with residency matching statute or policy.

Whether our prompts, documents or outputs are used to train or tune any model, by default or by opt-out, and whether that is contractually excluded. Record the clause reference, not the sales assurance.

Which independent assurance reports, certifications, penetration test summaries and audit rights the supplier has actually provided, and their dates. Note anything offered only 'under NDA on request' and whether we have received it.

Do they have an AI policy, named accountable roles, an impact assessment process, lifecycle controls and a route for us to report harmful outputs. Good: documents in hand and a named contact. Bad: a web page.

How and how fast they tell us about breaches, model changes, outages and behaviour drift; whether we can pin a model version; who decides to roll back. Record contractual notification periods.

List every claim we could not verify in the session. Each becomes either a contract condition or a reason to lower the score. Do not leave this blank.

Commercial model and exit

Procurement holds the negotiation. The relationship layer holds the question of whether the cost curve still supports the number.

What we pay per (seat, task, token, transaction, outcome) and which of those grows when adoption succeeds. Good: a worked cost at pilot volume, planned volume and three times planned volume, against the value range in canvas 9.

The answer to the third agent question: what a single task costs and what that becomes at full use. Record the point at which the cost curve overtakes the benefit range and who is watching for it.

Contract length, notice periods, uplift caps and what happens to price if the model provider changes their rates. Note anything that lets the supplier reprice mid-term.

How we get our data, prompts, configurations, fine-tuned assets and audit logs out, in what format, in what time, at what cost. Good: a written exit plan agreed before signature and a rehearsal date. Bad: 'standard export'.

What we would have to rebuild to leave: integrations, workflows, prompt libraries, staff habits. Estimate the months of effort to switch supplier or bring it in-house. Rate low, medium or high with the reason.

Open interfaces, standard formats, identity integration and whether it fits the architecture layer (business, data, application, technology) we already run. Name the integrations the build would depend on and who owns each.

Evaluation score

Score each criterion 1 (poor, no evidence) to 5 (strong, verified evidence). Weights reflect where relationship capital is lost when a purchase goes wrong.

CriterionWhat a high score meansWeightScore (1 to 5 per criterion, weighted; maximum total 100)Weighted
Capability against the shaped need5: demonstrated on our data, our process, at the rung we need, witnessed by the business owner. 1: demo only.50
Vocabulary clarity5: written definitions of agent, autonomy and approval steps matching the four agent questions. 1: marketing terms unanswered.20
Data handling and training use5: residency, sub-processors and training exclusion all contractual and verified. 1: verbal assurance only.30
Security and assurance evidence5: current independent reports in hand, audit rights agreed. 1: promised on request.30
Commercial model at volume5: cost curve modelled at three volumes and stays inside the benefit range. 1: pricing unit unclear or scales against us.30
Exit and portability5: written exit plan, formats, timings and costs agreed before signature. 1: no plan.20
Lock-in and interoperability5: open interfaces, fits current architecture, switching effort under six months. 1: proprietary at every layer.10
Supplier AI governance and incidents5: policy, roles, impact assessment, model version control and notification periods documented. 1: none provided.10
Total200
80 to 100
Recommend, with the conditions listed at the foot of the canvas written into the contract.
60 to 79
Recommend only with conditions closed before signature; return to the supplier with the unproven assurances list.
40 to 59
Do not commit. Run a time-boxed paid pilot against the shaped need, or re-open the shortlist.
Below 40
Decline. Record the reasons so the requester and the supplier can respect them.

Conditions and ownership

Each condition names what must be true, who confirms it and by when. Conditions without an owner are wishes.

ConditionEvidence requiredOwner (ours)Close before (gate or date)Status

Evaluation verdict

The relationship layer signs the value verdict. Procurement signs the commercial terms separately. Neither signs for the other.

Two or three sentences a minister, board or executive can read without the canvas. State the score, the deciding criteria and what would change the verdict.

The person who owns the number after handover and will attend the month-nine review (canvas 19). Not the supplier's account manager, not the project manager.

The condition rows above that procurement must land in the terms. List by row number so the two documents can be reconciled.

What a good one looks like

  • The shaped need and number are written at the top in our words, and every score references them rather than the demo
  • The supplier's definitions of agent, autonomy and approval steps are recorded verbatim with the gaps against the four agent questions marked
  • Cost is modelled at three volumes and the point where the curve overtakes the benefit range is named, with a watcher
  • An exit plan exists in writing before signature, including formats, timings, costs and a rehearsal date
  • Every unproven assurance has become either a numbered condition with an owner or a lower score, and none has quietly disappeared

Where it goes wrong

  • Scoring the product seen in the demo instead of the product tested on our data at the rung the need requires
  • Accepting 'we do not train on customer data' as a sentence in a meeting rather than a clause with a reference
  • Treating a free pilot as costless: it creates dependency, habits and data flows before anyone has evaluated the exit
  • Letting the supplier's account manager become the de facto business owner because nobody on our side was named
Canvas 12 of 20 Design · Commit to Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DESIGN · WHO WRITES THE INSTRUCTIONS

AI Prompt Governance Canvas

Decides who may write, approve, test, share and retire the prompts that assistants, copilots and workflow steps run on, and how we will notice when a model change quietly alters what those prompts do.

Stage
Design
Gate
Build
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the prompt library owner and the AI centre of excellence lead in the room, with the named business owner of the use case present for the scope and prohibited content sections. Signed at the Build gate by delivery for the testing and version control sections, and by the relationship layer for scope, roles and review cycle.
Inputs from
10 AI Playbook Builder, 11 AI Agent Assessment Canvas
Feeds into
14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 16 AI Adoption Canvas

Prompts are instructions to a system that acts on behalf of the organisation, and in most places they are written by whoever got there first, stored in a chat history, and changed without anyone being told. When the model underneath is upgraded, a prompt that worked on Monday produces something different on Tuesday and nobody owns the difference. We treat prompts as governed configuration: named, versioned, tested against a fixed set of cases, and reviewed on a cycle, so that the people relying on the output can trust it and the audit trail exists before anyone asks for it.

Use it when

  • A workflow, form or service is about to go live with a prompt embedded in one of its steps
  • An assistant or copilot has been rolled out for general use and teams are sharing prompts informally
  • The model provider announces a version change, deprecation or behaviour update
  • An output produced by a prompt has been challenged by a citizen, customer, regulator or internal reviewer
  • A team asks to publish a prompt library for others to reuse

Scope

State plainly which tools and which use cases this canvas governs. A prompt that sits outside the scope is ungoverned, and ungoverned is a decision, so make it explicit.

List the assistants, copilots and workflow platforms whose prompts this canvas governs. Good names the tool by its role in the organisation (the general-purpose assistant, the case handling workflow engine) and states whether personal chat use is included or excluded.

Name the tasks these prompts perform, grouped as general use (drafting, summarising, searching) or embedded in a workflow (a step that classifies, extracts or drafts inside a process). Good states which of the two receives the heavier controls and why.

Record the highest rung on the autonomy ladder these prompts operate at, taken from the agent assessment canvas. Good says single model call or workflow with model steps; if agent with tools appears, say which prompts and confirm they carry the agent controls as well.

Name what is deliberately excluded (personal experimentation, vendor-supplied system prompts, model training data) and who governs it instead. Good gives an owner for every exclusion rather than leaving it unowned.

Roles

Three roles, three different people or teams. Where the same person holds all three, write that down and treat it as a risk to resolve before the library grows.

Name the roles permitted to write prompts for general use and, separately, for embedded workflow steps. Good allows broad authorship for general use and restricts embedded prompts to people who have completed the testing routine in this canvas.

Name the approver for each class of prompt and what approval attests to (tested against the set, no prohibited content, owner named). Good keeps approval with the business owner of the use case for meaning and with the centre of excellence for safety, not with a single gatekeeper for everything.

Name the single role accountable for the prompt library as a whole: its structure, access, retirements and the review calendar. Good is a role that will still exist in eighteen months, not a project post.

State where creator, approver and owner must be different people, and where one person may hold two roles. Good separates them for every embedded prompt and for any prompt touching personal, financial or safety-related data.

Say who a creator or user goes to when an approver declines, when a prompt misbehaves in use, or when the library owner is absent. Good names a role and a response time in working days.

Record what product management, the centre of excellence, the PMO and finance business partnering each hold in this arrangement, so the relationship layer is not quietly doing all of it. Good lists one responsibility per neighbour.

Version Control and Change Record

A prompt that cannot be traced to a version, an author and a reason for change cannot be defended when its output is challenged.

Name the system of record for prompt text and history (a repository, a document library with version history, a feature of the workflow platform). Good is one place, with read access for all users and write access controlled by the roles above.

State how versions are numbered and what counts as a change requiring a new version (any edit to wording, any change of model, any change to attached examples or data). Good treats a model version change as a prompt version change even when the text is untouched.

List what every change must record: version, date, author, approver, reason, test result reference, and the model version it was tested on. Good adds a one-line statement of what changed in behaviour, not only what changed in text.

Say how a prompt is withdrawn, how users are told, and how a previous version is restored if a new one fails in use. Good gives a rollback time measured in hours and names who may trigger it.

Testing Before Use

Every governed prompt is run against a fixed set of cases before it is approved and again whenever the prompt or the model changes. The set is the memory of what the prompt is supposed to do.

Describe the cases each prompt is tested against: typical inputs, edge cases, inputs designed to provoke a wrong or harmful answer, and inputs the prompt must refuse. Good gives a minimum case count per prompt class and names who curates the set.

State what a passing result looks like: which outputs must match a reference answer, which are judged by a person against a short rubric, and what failure rate blocks approval. Good separates factual correctness, tone and refusal behaviour into distinct checks.

Name who executes the test set, who reviews the results, and whether the creator may test their own prompt. Good has a second person review embedded prompts before approval.

Say what is kept after each test run (inputs, outputs, model version, date, reviewer, verdict) and where. Good is enough that a reviewer eighteen months later can re-run the same set on the current model and compare.

Prohibited Content and Data

These flags apply to every prompt in scope. Tick each one that is enforced today; an unticked line is a gap to record in the decision block.

Review Cycle and Drift Check

Prompts decay in two ways: the task changes underneath them, and the model changes underneath them. Both need a scheduled look and a triggered one.

State the review interval per prompt class in months, and what a review covers (still needed, still owned, still passing the test set, still within scope). Good gives a shorter interval for embedded prompts than for general-use ones and names who runs the calendar.

Say how the library owner learns of a model version change from the provider, and what happens next: which prompts are re-run against their test sets, within how many working days, and who signs the results. Good re-runs every embedded prompt before the new model is allowed into production use.

List the signs that a prompt has drifted without a known model change: user complaints, rising manual corrections, refusals on inputs that used to pass, changed output length or format. Good names one measurable signal per prompt class and where it is reported.

State what an internal auditor or regulator must be able to see for any governed prompt: the current text, its version history, approvals, test evidence with model version, the data it touches, and the user or workflow that ran it on a given date. Good confirms the log retention period and who can produce the record within a stated number of working days.

Prompt Library Entries

Register the governed prompts here. Add rows during the session for prompts already in use; anything not in this table is, by definition, not yet governed.

NamePurposeOwnerVersionApproved byLast testedReview due

Prompt Governance Decision

The position the Business Relationship Manager takes to the Build gate on whether the prompts underneath this work are fit to be relied on.

State the option chosen and the two or three facts from the canvas that drove it. Good is readable by the sponsoring executive in under a minute.

List each condition, who holds it and the date it falls due. Good has no condition without a named role.

Name the role accountable for the library and the date of the first scheduled review. Good is the same name that appears in the Roles section.

What a good one looks like

  • Every prompt embedded in a live workflow appears in the library table with a version, an approver, a last-tested date on a stated model version and a review due date
  • Creator, approver and library owner are different roles for embedded prompts, and the library owner is a standing post rather than a project role
  • The test set exists as a maintained artefact with inputs the prompt must refuse, and the evidence from the last run can be produced on request
  • A model version change from the provider triggers a re-run of the test set before the new model reaches production, and the trigger has an owner
  • The prohibited content list is enforced by something other than trust: a review step, a template, or a control in the tool

Where it goes wrong

  • Governing only the embedded prompts and leaving general-use assistants entirely unmanaged, or the reverse: applying workflow-grade approval to every drafting prompt so people stop registering them
  • Treating a model upgrade as an infrastructure matter and never re-running the test set, so drift is discovered by a complaint
  • Naming a single enthusiast as creator, approver and owner, which works until they leave
  • Filling the library table with prompts nobody has tested, which turns the register into a list of unverified claims
Canvas 13 of 20 Design · Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

DESIGN · WHO OWNS IT AFTER LAUNCH

AI Product Ownership Canvas

Decides which role owns each part of the AI service after launch, what each owner can decide alone, and who carries the month-nine review.

Stage
Design
Gate
Commit to Build
Conversation
Value realisation
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the sponsoring executive, the delivery lead and the intended service owner in the room. The named business owner accepts each row; the relationship layer signs at the Commit gate.
Inputs from
09 AI Business Case Canvas, 05 AI Risk and Ethics Canvas, 11 AI Agent Assessment Canvas, 12 AI Vendor Evaluation Canvas
Feeds into
18 AI Benefits Realisation Canvas, 19 AI Value Realisation Review

We have watched AI initiatives go live with a delivery team, a sponsor and a launch date, and then quietly stop being anyone's job. The prompts drift, the supplier renews itself, the risk register stops moving and the benefit is never counted because nobody was named to count it. This canvas names a role against every item that needs one before the build is funded, so that handover is an acceptance rather than an abandonment.

Use it when

  • The business case is heading to the Commit gate and no run-side owner is written down
  • A pilot is about to be declared a service and the delivery team is being stood down
  • A supplier contract or licence is being signed for a model or service the business will depend on
  • An agent assessment placed the initiative on the top two rungs of the autonomy ladder
  • An existing AI service has an incident or renewal and the question of who decides cannot be answered in one sentence

Ownership table

One role per row, never a person. If the same role appears in more than four rows, ask whether that role has the time and the authority to hold them. A blank cell at Commit is a reason to hold the gate.

Owning roleDeputy roleDecision rightsReview cadence
Business outcome and the committed number
Model or service
Prompt library
Data (inputs, outputs, retention)
Risks and controls
Budget and run cost
Supplier relationship
Performance and quality
Incidents and complaints
Retirement or replacement

Month-nine review

The role that convenes the month-nine review and reports value against the committed number. Usually the relationship layer; write it here even if it seems obvious, because this is the row most organisations leave empty.

The month and the governance forum that will receive the review, fixed now. Good looks like a calendar entry that exists before the build starts.

The baseline, the target, the measure and the source system the owner will report from. If the measure cannot be named today, the number in the business case is not yet real.

Decision rights

List the decisions the business owner can take without a forum: prompt edits within an approved scope, minor supplier changes, pausing the service. Good is a short list that lets the owner act in a week rather than a quarter.

List the decisions that must go to a named forum: changing the model or provider, widening what the service is allowed to touch, moving up a rung of the autonomy ladder, exceeding the run budget, extending to a new citizen or customer group. Name the forum for each.

Handover from build to run

The artefacts the delivery team must supply before it is released: evaluation results, the prompt library with version history, data lineage, the risk register with open items, the supplier contract and exit terms, the runbook and the cost per task at current and expected volume.

The conditions under which the business owner signs acceptance, and what happens if they are not met. Good is a dated acceptance with named exceptions, not a slide that says 'live'.

Retirement criteria

The measurable conditions that trigger retirement: value below a stated floor at review, cost per task above a stated ceiling, an unresolved risk above appetite, or the process underneath being replaced. Write thresholds, not sentiments.

The role and forum that can retire the service, and the notice period owed to users, the supplier and any dependent services.

Data disposal or return, licence termination, prompt archive, redirect of the demand it served, and the lesson fed back through the return rail into the review gate.

Ownership decision

The block a practitioner takes to the Commit gate. The gate does not open until every row above has a role and the month-nine owner is named.

The single role that owns the committed number and accepts handover. One role, written in full.

Each row still blank or contested, who will resolve it and by when.

Role, date and the forum where this ownership decision was recorded.

What a good one looks like

  • Every one of the ten rows carries a role and a deputy, and no role is carrying more than it can plausibly hold
  • The month-nine review has an owner, a date and a forum before the first line of code is funded
  • The owner-alone list is long enough that ordinary running does not queue behind governance, and the forum list covers every change that widens blast radius or cost
  • Handover is written as an acceptance with conditions, and the delivery team knows what it must produce to be released
  • Retirement thresholds are numbers the value review can test, not a promise to think about it later

Where it goes wrong

  • Writing a person's name instead of a role, so ownership leaves when they do
  • Giving every row to the sponsoring executive, which records ownership without creating any
  • Leaving the month-nine review to the PMO, whose tracking usually lapses at project close
  • Treating handover as a launch event rather than an acceptance the owner can refuse
Canvas 14 of 20 Design · Commit to Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

ADOPT · WHO GAINS, WHO IS DISRUPTED

AI Stakeholder Impact Canvas

Decides which people and groups the AI change touches, where each of them stands today, where they need to stand for the committed number to arrive, and which conversations the relationship layer books first.

Stage
Adopt
Gate
Build
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the named business owner from the Commit gate and, where one exists, the product owner. The relationship layer signs, because stakeholder work sits in the circuit; delivery signs the Build gate only once this canvas has been reviewed with them.
Inputs from
09 AI Business Case Canvas
Feeds into
16 AI Adoption Canvas, 17 AI Workforce Impact Canvas

We have watched well-built AI services stall because the people whose work changed were told about it after the build, and the people who could have stopped it were never asked why they objected. A business case names a sponsor and a number; it rarely names the caseworker whose discretion the model now exercises, the union that will hear about it second-hand, or the citizen whose complaint route just moved. This canvas puts those people on one page before engineering commits, so relationship capital is spent where it changes an outcome rather than where it is comfortable.

Use it when

  • The business case has passed Commit and the Build gate is in sight, before engineering starts.
  • The AI change alters how a group of staff exercises judgement, discretion or status.
  • A group with the ability to block (union, regulator, professional body, works council) has not yet been consulted.
  • The service is for citizens or customers who are not represented in the room.
  • The adoption plan (canvas 16) cannot be written because nobody can say who is for and who is against.

The change in one paragraph

Restate the change from the business case in terms a front-line member of staff would recognise. Stakeholders react to what changes for them, not to the architecture.

Two or three sentences on what a person does differently once the AI is live: what they stop doing, what they now check, what decision they no longer make alone. Good is concrete enough that a resistor would agree it is accurate.

The rung from the autonomy ladder the build sits on and who is inside its blast radius when it is wrong. Good names the group who carries the error, not the system that produces it.

The benefit and value figure from the Commit gate, as a range, and the month it is due. Good is copied from the business case, not re-negotiated here.

The single group whose behaviour the number depends on most. If they do not change, the number does not arrive. Good is one group, named by role.

Stakeholder map

One row per stakeholder or group. Category is one of: winner, disrupted, influencer, resistor, hidden. Influence and interest are scored one to five. Stance is one of: champion, supportive, neutral, wary, opposed. Cover all five categories; a map with no resistors and no hidden stakeholders is an incomplete map.

Stakeholder or groupCategoryInfluence (1 to 5)Interest (1 to 5)Current stanceTarget stanceShift requiredPrimary tacticOwner

Objections that may be right

Take the resistors and the wary from the map and treat each objection as a hypothesis to be tested, not a position to be managed. Where the objection holds, record what changes in scope, rung, controls or timing. A resistor whose objection changed the design usually becomes the most credible advocate the service has.

Objection as they would state itWho holds itIs it right, partly right or wrongEvidence we checkedWhat we change because of itFed back to them by

The people the service is for

Citizens, customers, patients, claimants or employees on the receiving end rarely sit in the workshop. Record how their interest is represented, and be honest where it is not.

The population affected by the AI decision or output, in plain terms, including any group more exposed than the average (language, disability, digital access, vulnerability). Good names the exposed group, not just the general public.

The person, forum, panel, advocate or data that stands in for them in this work, and how much weight it carries. Good is a named role or forum with a date; 'we assume' is a flag, not an answer.

Whether they will know AI was involved, how they ask for a human to look again, and where a complaint goes. Good is a route that exists today or a dated commitment to build one.

Hidden stakeholders check

Tick each group that has been consulted, or record why consultation is not needed. An unticked box with no reason is a Build gate risk.

Conversations to book in thirty days

Relationship capital is finite. Choose the conversations that move a stance the number depends on, or that de-risk the Build gate. Six is usually enough; twelve means nobody has prioritised.

WhoPurpose of the conversationStance shift soughtWho leads itDate bookedOutcome recorded

Stakeholder readiness for Build

The verdict the relationship layer takes to the Build gate alongside the business case. Delivery should not commit engineering effort against a map that shows an unconsulted blocker.

Three or four sentences: which stances must move, which objection changed what, and any condition attached to a Build start. Good is specific enough that delivery can plan around it.

The single named role accountable for the map staying current through Build and into Review. Good is the BRM or the business owner, not a committee.

When the map is revisited: at the latest, the first Build milestone. Good is a date, not a phase.

What a good one looks like

  • Every one of the five categories has at least one row, and the resistor rows carry an honest statement of the objection in the resistor's own terms.
  • At least one objection has been judged right or partly right and has changed scope, rung, controls or timing, with the change fed back to the person who raised it.
  • The people the service is for have a named representative or forum, or the canvas states plainly that they do not and the output verdict reflects it.
  • Target stances are realistic: a hard opponent moved to neutral is recorded as a win, not rewritten as a champion.
  • The thirty-day conversations are few, dated, led by a named role, and each one maps to a stance shift the committed number depends on.

Where it goes wrong

  • Populating the map only with people already in the room, so the winners and influencers columns are full and the disrupted, resistor and hidden rows are empty.
  • Treating every objection as resistance to be managed rather than a hypothesis to test, and so missing the one that would have changed the design.
  • Setting every target stance to champion, which makes the shift column meaningless and spends relationship capital on people who would have been fine at neutral.
  • Recording the citizen or customer as 'represented by the service owner' when nobody outside the organisation has seen what changes for them.
Canvas 15 of 20 Adopt · Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

ADOPT · DEPLOYMENT IS NOT USE

AI Adoption Canvas

Decides who will change how they work, what it will take to make that happen, how we will know it has, and the point at which we admit it has not.

Stage
Adopt
Gate
Build
Conversation
Value realisation
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the named business owner and the delivery lead in the room, with the champion lead and a frontline representative for each user group where possible. The business owner signs the adoption plan and the failure trigger; the relationship layer confirms it is consistent with the committed number; delivery confirms the support and training commitments are resourced.
Inputs from
09 AI Business Case Canvas, 15 AI Stakeholder Impact Canvas, 13 AI Prompt Governance Canvas
Feeds into
17 AI Workforce Impact Canvas, 18 AI Benefits Realisation Canvas

We have watched capability go live on schedule and sit unused, because the plan stopped at deployment and nobody owned the ninety days after it. The number committed at the Commit gate only arrives if people change their working habits, and habit does not change because a licence was issued. This canvas puts the adoption work on paper before build finishes, with an owner, a measure that is not log-ins, and a trigger for calling failure early enough to do something about it.

Use it when

  • The Build gate is in sight and a go-live date has been named
  • The business case (canvas 09) depends on a behaviour change rather than a system change
  • The stakeholder impact canvas (canvas 15) has identified a group that experiences disruption
  • A pilot has run and the question is whether to widen it to a whole user population
  • Usage of something already live is falling and nobody can say why

Target users and the current way of working

Name the people whose behaviour has to change and describe, honestly, how they do the task today. If we cannot describe the current way of working we cannot say what is being replaced.

User groupHeadcount and locationCurrent way of workingWhat they gainWhat they lose or fear

Behaviour changes required

One behaviour per row. A behaviour is something a person does differently on a given day, not an attitude. If the row cannot be observed, rewrite it until it can.

Behaviour that has to changeFrom (today)To (target)User groupWhy they would botherEnabler that has to exist first

Training, support and communication

Plan by user group, not by system. Each group hears a different message from a different voice, and needs a different kind of help at a different moment.

For each group: format (in the flow of work, short session, self-serve), when relative to go-live, and who delivers it. Good is training that happens within a week of first use, not a month before.

Where a user goes when it does not work: named floorwalkers, a channel, office hours, and the hours it is staffed. State who answers questions about the model's output being wrong, as opposed to the tool being down.

The one-page guides, approved prompt patterns (from canvas 13) and worked examples that will exist on day one. List what is written, not what is intended.

For each audience: the message, the messenger, and why that messenger carries weight with that audience. A frontline group hears it from its own supervisor, not from the programme.

The sequence of communications from announcement to ninety days, with dates. Include the moment we tell people what has changed as a result of their feedback.

Claims we decline to make (time saved, jobs safe, accuracy) because we cannot yet evidence them. Good is a short list that protects credibility for the value review.

Champion network and feedback loops

Champions are the people a colleague actually asks. Feedback loops are the route by which a problem at a desk reaches the person who can fix it, with a clock on it.

How champions are chosen (peer credibility, not seniority), one per team or site, the time they are released for it, and who backfills that time. Name the champion lead.

The specific tasks: first-week floorwalking, collecting examples of good and bad output, relaying issues, running a short show-and-tell. Good is a list short enough that a busy person accepts it.

The channel, who triages it, and the time within which a user gets a response. Separate three kinds: tool broken, output wrong, process does not fit. Each goes to a different fixer.

How and when users hear what changed because of what they reported. Include the review meeting cadence in the first ninety days and who attends from the business side.

Adoption measures that are not log-ins

Log-ins measure curiosity. Adoption is measured by the task being done the new way, by the people it was built for, and by the old way falling away.

MeasureHow it is capturedBaseline nowTarget at day 30Target at day 90Owner
Proportion of eligible tasks done the new way
Users who returned to the old method
Time to first use after access
Repeat use within the user group
Quality of output accepted without rework
Issues raised and closed within the response time

First ninety days and the failure trigger

Write the ninety-day plan as three thirty-day blocks with a decision at the end of each. Then name, before go-live, the evidence that would tell us adoption has failed and what we do on that day.

What happens, who is on the floor, which measures are read weekly, and the decision taken at day 30 (continue, adjust, pause). Good is a plan that names the meeting and the person who chairs it.

Widening, retraining where the first block showed gaps, withdrawal of parallel running if agreed, and the decision at day 60.

Handover from programme support to business-as-usual support, the measures that must be reached for the value realisation conversation, and what is passed to the benefits realisation canvas (canvas 18).

The measure, the threshold and the date at which we say adoption has not happened. One line, agreed now, so nobody argues about it later. Example form: fewer than half of eligible tasks done the new way by day 60 in the primary user group.

The options we commit to considering: redesign the working practice, retrain, narrow the scope to the group where it works, or withdraw and record the lesson. Name who convenes the decision and within how many days.

Which relationships are spent if this fails visibly, and what the BRM does to protect them before the trigger date rather than after. Good is a candid line about which sponsor's credibility rides on this.

Adoption decision

The artefact carried to the Build gate and returned to at the value realisation conversation. It states whether the organisation is ready to use what it is about to receive.

The option chosen and the two or three facts from the canvas that drove it. Written so the sponsoring executive can read it in one minute.

Copy the measure, threshold and date exactly as signed. This line is what the value realisation conversation opens with.

The named business owner accountable for the ninety days and for calling the trigger, and the BRM who will hold them to it.

What a good one looks like

  • Every behaviour row describes something a supervisor could watch happening, or not happening, on a Tuesday afternoon
  • The adoption measures could be read without asking the technology team for a usage report
  • The messenger for each audience is a person that audience already trusts, and the programme is not the messenger for anyone below management
  • The failure trigger has a number, a group and a date, and the business owner has signed it before go-live rather than after the first bad month
  • Support commitments have names and rostered hours against them, not an intention to be available

Where it goes wrong

  • Filling the target user row with a directorate name and headcount, without describing how the task is done today, so the change being asked for is never made explicit
  • Measuring adoption by accounts activated or log-ins, which rewards curiosity and hides the return to the old method
  • Making the programme team the champion network and the messenger, so adoption support ends the day the programme closes
  • Leaving the failure trigger blank on the grounds that it is defeatist, which guarantees the conversation happens late, in anger, and without an agreed response
Canvas 16 of 20 Adopt · Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

ADOPT · TASKS, NOT JOBS

AI Workforce Impact Canvas

Decides, task by task, what the AI change removes, alters or creates in people's work, who is affected, where the released time goes, and what the organisation commits to its staff before the build lands.

Stage
Adopt
Gate
Build
Conversation
None
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the business owner and a line manager from each affected team in the room, with human resources or people partnering advising on obligations; the business owner signs the commitments to staff, and the relationship layer signs that the canvas is complete before Build proceeds.
Inputs from
15 AI Stakeholder Impact Canvas, 16 AI Adoption Canvas
Feeds into
18 AI Benefits Realisation Canvas, 20 AI Capability Roadmap Canvas

Workforce conversations about AI tend to start with jobs and headcount, which is the wrong unit and the fastest way to lose the room. A job is a bundle of tasks, and the change lands on a few of them at a time; when we cannot say which, staff assume the worst and their representatives fill the silence for them. We complete this canvas so that the business owner can describe the change honestly, the consultation is done properly rather than late, and the time released is spent on something we chose rather than absorbed and forgotten.

Use it when

  • A request passing the Commit gate changes how a team spends more than a small part of its week
  • The business case counts time saved or roles avoided as a benefit
  • A staff representative, union or works council has asked what the AI change means for members
  • The Stakeholder Impact Canvas flagged a group who will experience disruption
  • A reskilling or redeployment budget line is being requested

Task by task

List the tasks the change actually touches, not the job titles. Aim for six to ten rows; if you cannot name the task, the change is not yet understood well enough to build.

TaskDisappears, changes or emergesWho does it todayWhat changes for themSkill implication

Skills that shift

Name the capabilities the changed work demands more of, such as checking model output, framing a request well, judging exceptions or explaining a decision to a citizen or customer. Good is specific enough to appear in a role profile.

Name the capabilities the change removes demand for, and say honestly whether they were a source of pride or identity for the people who hold them. Good acknowledges the loss rather than dressing it up.

Time released

Released time is a decision, not an assumption. If nobody decides where it goes, it is absorbed and the benefit never appears in the review at month nine.

Give a range per team, drawn from the task table, with the assumption behind it. Good separates time released with confidence from time that depends on adoption.

State the single decision: backlog cleared, service extended, quality raised, posts not backfilled, or hours returned to staff. Name the option chosen and the one rejected.

Name the role that made the reinvestment decision and the date. If the answer is nobody yet, write that and escalate before Build.

Roles and grades affected

List role titles and grade or band, with headcount range per team and location. Good includes contractors and outsourced staff, who are often forgotten.

For each role, say whether the effect is a changed task mix, a changed role profile, a reduced number of posts, or a new post. Good is one line per role with no hedging.

Consultation and representation

Obligations differ by jurisdiction and employer, but the questions are the same everywhere. Confirm each with human resources or the people partner, not from memory.

Reskilling plan and commitments

Skill or groupLearning routeOwnerDateHow we will know it worked

What we will not do

Write the three to five things the organisation commits not to do as a result of this change, in words a member of staff could hold us to: for example, no compulsory redundancy from this change within a stated period, no individual performance measures derived from system output without agreement, no removal of a task before its reskilling route is open. Good is specific, dated where it can be, and signed by the business owner.

Workforce decision

The position the business owner takes into the Build gate and, where required, into consultation.

State the option chosen and the two or three facts from the canvas that drove it.

Role title and date. This is the person staff will hear the commitments from.

Date the canvas is revisited, normally when the first task switches over and again at the month nine value review.

What a good one looks like

  • Every row in the task table names a task a line manager would recognise, and at least one row is marked emerges, because new work always appears
  • The released time has a named decision and a named decider, and the figure reconciles with the benefit claimed in the business case
  • The consultation checklist was confirmed with the people partner in the room, with dates that sit before Build rather than after go-live
  • The commitments to staff are written in plain words, dated, and signed by the business owner, not by the project
  • The reskilling plan has owners and dates, and the Capability Roadmap picks up the skills that matter more

Where it goes wrong

  • Filling the task table with job titles or process names, which hides the real change and makes consultation impossible to do well
  • Booking time saved as a benefit while leaving the reinvestment decision to line managers, so the hours are absorbed and the value review finds nothing
  • Treating consultation as a communications task to be done after Build, which turns a manageable change into a dispute
  • Writing commitments the business owner cannot keep, such as promising no change to roles when the task table shows otherwise
Canvas 17 of 20 Adopt · Build gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

REALISE · IS THE NUMBER ARRIVING

AI Benefits Realisation Canvas

Decides whether the value committed at the Commit gate is actually arriving in the business after handover, and what to do about it if it is not.

Stage
Realise
Gate
Review
Conversation
Value realisation
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager with the named business owner and each measurement owner in the room; finance business partnering supplies or confirms the readings for cashable benefits. Signed by the relationship layer at the Review gate, with the business owner countersigning the recommendation.
Inputs from
09 AI Business Case Canvas, 14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 16 AI Adoption Canvas, 17 AI Workforce Impact Canvas
Feeds into
19 AI Value Realisation Review

Governance forums are built to ask whether the build is safe; almost nobody is built to ask whether the number arrived. Once the project team closes, the benefits tracker usually lapses with it, and the organisation is left with a working system and no evidence that anyone is working differently because of it. We hold this canvas open after handover so that the committed number has an owner, a reading and a review date until it is either achieved or honestly written down.

Use it when

  • The build has been handed over and the first review point after go-live is due
  • The Review gate is approaching and the relationship layer must report value against the committed number
  • A benefit owner reports that the measure has not moved, or nobody can say what the current reading is
  • The sponsoring executive asks whether to scale, adjust or stop an AI capability that has been live for a while
  • A finance business partner asks for evidence that a benefit booked in the business case has been cashed or delivered

The committed number

Restate what was promised at the Commit gate before anyone looks at what has arrived. Copy these from the business case canvas rather than reconstructing them from memory.

Name the AI capability and the autonomy rung it runs at. One line, exactly as it appears in the intake record.

The role that committed to the number and is accountable for harvesting it. A role title, not the project manager and not the delivery team.

The number signed at Commit, its unit (money, hours, cases, error rate) and the date by which it was due. Write the range that was committed, not a single tidied figure.

When delivery signed off and the organisation took ownership. Benefits are counted from here, not from project start.

Which review this is (for example month three, month nine, month eighteen) and the date the next one is booked for.

Who provided the current readings in this canvas and from which source system or report. If a reading is an estimate rather than a measurement, say so here.

Benefits table

One row per benefit named in the business case. Type is one of cashable, non-cashable, avoided cost, quality or strategic. A row with no baseline or no current reading is not yet a benefit; it is a hope.

BenefitTypeBeneficiaryMeasureMeasurement ownerBaselineTargetCurrent readingReview frequency

Behaviour change each benefit depends on

Every benefit arrives only if somebody works differently after handover. Name the change, who has to make it, and whether it has happened. Draw on the adoption and workforce impact canvases rather than re-surveying the room.

BenefitWho has to changeWhat they must do differentlyHas it happened (yes, partly, no)EvidenceOwner of the change

Risks to realisation

Cause, event and effect for anything that could stop the number arriving: process not switched off, staff still running the old way alongside the new, data quality drifting, licence or usage costs rising at volume, the sponsor moving on.

CauseEventEffect on the numberMitigationOwnerNext review

Value achieved so far

Total realised value to date as a low and high figure against the committed number, in the same unit. Separate what has been measured from what has been estimated, and state which benefits are contributing and which are not yet moving.

The difference between the committed range and the achieved range, and the honest reason for it: behaviour not changed, measure not tracked, assumption wrong, or capability underperforming.

The condition that forces action before the next review, stated as a reading. For example: if the current reading is below the low end of the committed range at month six, or if two consecutive reviews show no movement. Name who is notified when it fires.

Where value is escaping: unmeasured use, a pilot that has not scaled, the old process still running, or costs not counted. One line per leak, with the owner who can close it.

Review gate recommendation

Choose one, and be prepared to defend it in front of the sponsoring executive and finance business partnering with the readings above.

State the choice and the two or three readings that justify it. If adjusting, name the single change most likely to move the number.

The role accountable for acting on the recommendation and the date of the next review at which the reading will be checked again.

What a good one looks like

  • Every benefit row has a baseline, a current reading and a named measurement owner, and readings are traceable to a source rather than remembered
  • The value achieved is written as a range against the committed range, with measured and estimated portions kept apart
  • Each benefit is tied to a specific behaviour change with evidence of whether it has occurred, and the gaps map cleanly onto the behaviours that have not
  • The corrective action trigger is a reading with a threshold and a named recipient, not a sentiment
  • The recommendation is one of the four options and the business owner has countersigned it before it reaches the forum

Where it goes wrong

  • Counting benefits from project start rather than handover, which inflates early readings and hides the fact that nobody has changed how they work
  • Recording the target as the current reading because the system is live and the assumption was that value would follow automatically
  • Letting the project manager own measurement after close, so the tracker lapses the day the team disbands
  • Choosing Adjust every review to avoid the conversation that Stop requires, and never firing the corrective action trigger
Canvas 18 of 20 Realise · Review gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

REALISE · MONTH NINE

AI Value Realisation Review

Decides, nine months after commitment, whether the measured value justified the number we signed, what the organisation should do with the capability now, and what the front door must learn from how we shaped it.

Stage
Realise
Gate
Review (month nine)
Conversation
Value optimisation
Completed by
Completed by the Business Relationship Manager as loop owner, with the named business owner, the product owner and the finance business partner in the room, drawing on the benefits tracker and the portfolio heatmap. The Review gate is signed by the relationship layer; the sponsoring executive countersigns the decision route where it commits or releases funding.
Inputs from
18 AI Benefits Realisation Canvas, 14 AI Product Ownership Canvas, 08 AI Portfolio Heatmap
Feeds into
02 AI Demand Shaping Canvas, 20 AI Capability Roadmap Canvas

Most AI work is reviewed at go-live, when nothing has yet been realised, and never again. Without a month-nine gate the committed number quietly becomes a forecast nobody owns, the pilot that should have scaled sits at the same volume it launched at, and the request we shaped badly teaches us nothing. We hold this review so the measured outcome travels back to the loop owner and changes how the next request is shaped.

Use it when

  • Nine months after the Commit gate was signed for any AI initiative in the portfolio
  • The benefits realisation tracker (canvas 18) shows the number arriving well above or well below the committed range
  • The product owner requests a decision on scaling, further investment or retirement
  • The sponsoring executive or finance business partner asks whether the value is real before renewing licences or funding
  • A comparable request has arrived at the front door and the portfolio needs to know what this one taught us

The number, then and now

The value we signed at the Commit gate, in the range we agreed (low, expected, high), with the benefit type: cashable, non-cashable, avoided cost, quality or strategic. Copy it from canvas 18; do not restate it from memory.

What has actually been realised by month nine, in the same unit as the commitment, and who harvested it after handover. Good states the measure, the baseline it moved from and the date of the reading.

High, medium or low, with the reason: direct measurement, proxy measure, sampled, or self-reported. State what would raise it to the next level.

Difference between committed and measured, and whether it comes from adoption (people not changing how they work), the capability itself (quality, cost, reliability), or the number (it was never achievable). Name one cause as primary.

Total cost of running and maintaining the capability since commitment, including per-task model cost at actual volume, against what the business case assumed. One line, with the variance.

Is the value still rising, flat or falling at month nine, and what does the next twelve months look like on current evidence? Good is a range, not a point estimate.

What we did not expect

Two or three things that happened which none of the shaping canvases predicted: value in a place we did not look for it, resistance where we expected welcome, a use nobody designed. State the surprise and its consequence.

The specific things that did not work: a step the model could not do reliably, an integration that never landed, a group that did not adopt. Cause, event, effect. Good separates failures of the capability from failures of the organisation around it.

Where people are using the capability outside its intended scope, or have built their own alternative because this one did not fit. This is unmeasured value or unmanaged risk; say which.

Any risk from canvas 05 that became an event, and any event nobody had on the register. For each, whether the selected response worked.

Was the shaping right

Judge our own decisions at the front door, not the delivery. Each row is a shaping call we made; mark it right, partly right or wrong, and say what the evidence is.

Shaping decisionWhat we decidedRight, partly right or wrongEvidence at month nineWhat we would do differently
Rung on the autonomy ladder
Alternative chosen (fix, reuse, merge, build, decline)
Readiness verdict (go, wait, prerequisites)
The committed number and its range
Named business owner and harvest plan

Optimisation

The value optimisation conversation: what would make this worth more, or cost less, without a new request.

The one or two changes that would raise realised value: wider adoption in a named group, a broken upstream process fixed, a second use of the same capability. Estimate the uplift as a range and name who would have to act.

The changes that would lower cost per task or total cost: a lower rung for part of the work, a cheaper model tier, fewer human review steps where evaluation shows they add nothing, a licence not renewed. Estimate the saving as a range.

Controls set at Build that nine months of evidence show are heavier than the blast radius warrants. Name the control and the evidence. If nothing can relax, say so and why.

Where the capability has drifted beyond what it was allowed to touch, or where approval steps are being skipped. Name the control and the owner of the fix.

What returns to the front door

Close the loop. Every review produces new demand and new shaping knowledge; both go back to the loop owner.

Requests this capability has generated: adjacent processes, the next rung up, the same pattern in another business area. List each as a one-line request for the Request gate, not as a decision made here.

The single most useful thing the shaping canvases should ask differently next time, written as a question a BRM can put to the next requester. Feeds canvas 02.

What this initiative proved or disproved about a platform play, a data prerequisite or a skill the organisation needs. Feeds canvas 20.

How the position of this initiative on canvas 08 should change: value band, confidence band, and whether it now anchors a platform play or stands alone.

Decision route

One choice. The relationship layer signs; funding changes are countersigned by the sponsoring executive.

Review gate sign-off

The artefact the loop owner carries to the governance or funding forum, and the record the front door keeps.

The route chosen, in one sentence, followed by the two facts that decided it: the measured value against the committed number, and the primary cause of any gap.

The named business owner accountable for the decision, the product owner who acts on it, and the date of the next review if the route is scale, continue or adjust.

The new requests, the shaping lesson and the roadmap lesson, confirmed as logged at the front door with a reference the requester can follow.

What a good one looks like

  • The committed number is copied from the Commit gate record, not remembered, and the measured value sits next to it in the same unit with a stated confidence level.
  • At least one shaping decision is marked partly right or wrong with evidence; a review that finds its own shaping flawless has not looked.
  • The optimisation fields contain ranges and named actors, so the value optimisation conversation can be booked the same week.
  • The decision route is a single choice with a rationale short enough to read aloud in a funding forum.
  • New demand and the shaping lesson are logged at the front door before the session ends, with a reference the loop owner can trace.

Where it goes wrong

  • Reviewing delivery rather than value: the canvas fills up with what was built and on time, and the committed number is never mentioned.
  • Confidence is left blank or set to high by default, so a self-reported estimate carries the same weight as a measured one.
  • The shaping table is completed by the people who did the shaping without a partner in the room, and every row comes back marked right.
  • Choosing Continue because Stop is uncomfortable, when the evidence says the number was never achievable and the cost is still running.
Canvas 19 of 20 Realise · Review (month nine) gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

REALISE · CURRENT STATE TO THIRTY-SIX MONTHS

AI Capability Roadmap Canvas

Decides what the organisation's AI capability must look like at twelve, twenty-four and thirty-six months across governance, skills, data, technology and ways of working, so that the prerequisites the readiness canvases keep surfacing are built once rather than rediscovered request by request.

Stage
Realise
Gate
Review
Conversation
Value optimisation
Completed by
Completed by the lead Business Relationship Manager with the head of the AI centre of excellence, the data owner, the finance business partner and a workforce or HR lead in the room. The relationship layer signs the roadmap at the Review gate; the sponsoring executive endorses it for funding.
Inputs from
04 AI Readiness Canvas, 08 AI Portfolio Heatmap, 12 AI Vendor Evaluation Canvas, 17 AI Workforce Impact Canvas, 19 AI Value Realisation Review
Feeds into
01 AI Opportunity Canvas

Without a roadmap, every readiness assessment ends in the same verdict: wait, or build prerequisites first. We keep telling requesters the data is not owned, the gates are not staffed and the platform is not funded, and nobody is accountable for changing any of it. This canvas turns the recurring blockers into a plan with owners and review dates, and gives the relationship layer something to spend its capital on other than repeating the same bad news.

Use it when

  • Three or more readiness assessments in a quarter have returned Wait or Build prerequisites first for the same reason
  • The portfolio heatmap shows demand clustering around a platform play that nobody has funded
  • A month-nine value review has found benefits blocked by a capability gap rather than a delivery fault
  • Annual planning or budget setting is opening and the sponsoring executive wants a multi-year AI position
  • Vendor evaluation or workforce impact work has exposed a dependency the organisation cannot meet today

Capability by horizon

One line per cell. Describe an observable state, not an aspiration. The current state column must be honest enough that a requester recognises it.

Current stateTwelve monthsTwenty-four monthsThirty-six months
Governance
Skills
Data
Technology
Ways of working

Recurring prerequisites

The blockers that readiness assessments surface more than once. Each becomes a dated item on the table above.

Name the prerequisite in the words the readiness canvas used, for example named data ownership for case records. Good is a blocker that has appeared in at least two assessments.

List the request or opportunity ids that returned Wait or Build prerequisites first because of this blocker. Good shows the demand that unlocks once it is fixed.

State the horizon by which the prerequisite is met and the named role accountable. Good is a role that already exists or is created on this roadmap.

Platform plays to fund

Clusters from the portfolio heatmap that merge many shaped requests into one properly funded capability.

Describe the shared capability in one sentence and the demand cluster it serves, for example document summarisation across three casework services. Good names the highest autonomy rung it needs.

State where the money comes from (portfolio budget, sponsoring directorate, reallocated licence spend) and the horizon in which the play is live. Good has a finance business partner already consulted.

Roles and gate ownership

Name the role, not the person, that signs each of the six gates. A gate with no owner is the most common reason demand leaks.

Signing role todaySigning role at twelve monthsRole exists or must be createdOwner for creating it
Request
Shape
Rank
Commit
Build
Review

Dependencies between dimensions

Where one row of the table cannot move until another does. Sequence follows from this, not from enthusiasm.

Write dependencies as A before B, for example data ownership before any agent above rung three; prompt governance before skills rollout. Good has three to six chains, each traceable to a table cell.

Identify which chain, if late, delays the whole roadmap, and where there is room to slip. Good names the single dependency the relationship layer will watch most closely.

Review points

The roadmap is refreshed, not filed. State when and by whom.

State the interval (quarterly is typical) and the forum in which the refresh happens. Good ties refresh to the month-nine value reviews so measured outcomes update the plan.

Name the role that owns the refresh and who they must consult. Good is the relationship layer, with the centre of excellence and finance as standing contributors.

List the events that reopen the roadmap before the next cadence, for example a regulator changes a rule, a supplier exits, a platform play misses its number. Good has three to five triggers.

Roadmap decision

What the relationship layer takes to the sponsoring executive and the funding forum.

State the option chosen and the two or three reasons that carried it, in plain terms a requester could read.

Name the three items on the roadmap that start in the next quarter, each with an owner and a date.

Name the role of the executive who endorses the roadmap and will answer for it at the next refresh.

What a good one looks like

  • Every cell in the capability table describes something a colleague could walk in and check, not a slogan
  • Each recurring prerequisite is linked to the requests it stalled and to a dated item with a named role
  • All six gates have a signing role at twelve months, and any role that does not yet exist has an owner for creating it
  • Platform plays are funded from an identified route and mapped to the demand cluster they collapse
  • The refresh cadence is tied to value reviews so measured outcomes change the plan

Where it goes wrong

  • Filling the thirty-six month column with ambition and the current state column with generosity, so the gap looks smaller than it is
  • Listing technology purchases as capability while governance and data rows stay blank
  • Naming people instead of roles, so the roadmap expires when someone moves on
  • Treating the canvas as a one-off deliverable with no refresh owner, so it is stale by the first value review
Canvas 20 of 20 Realise · Review gate GOVBRM AI Demand Toolkit · govbrm.com/AIDemandToolkit

Questions

What people ask before they use it.

What is AI demand shaping?

AI demand shaping is the practice of asking what an AI request is for, surfacing the need beneath it, choosing the lowest rung of autonomy that solves it, and committing a named owner and a number before anything is built. It is the Shape gate of the AI demand front door, and it is where most AI value is either protected or lost.

Who is the toolkit for?

Business Relationship Managers and the people who do that work under other titles: business partners, engagement leads, product and portfolio leads, and anyone in a public sector organisation or regulated enterprise who has to decide which AI requests deserve attention and which do not.

How do the canvases fit together?

Twenty canvases across six stages, each stage mapped to a gate of the AI demand front door: Discover, Assess, Prioritise, Design, Adopt and Realise. Start at the AI Demand Shaping Canvas, follow the route it recommends, and finish at the month-nine review, which sends what it learns back to the front door.

Is it free to use?

Yes. Complete the canvases in the browser, print any canvas to a single A4 page, and export your answers as a file to keep. Answers are saved only in your own browser and are not sent anywhere.