Worked Example: Cross-Functional Intake
Use the tools to improve a handoff across sales and delivery.
All organizations, workflows, numbers, and results in these examples are fictional and provided for learning. Targets are proposed decision criteria, not validated standards or promised outcomes.
The situation
A fictional services company handles 80 new-project intake requests per month. Sales submits notes, delivery asks for missing scope, and operations routes the request. The team wants fewer clarification loops.
Completed opportunity canvas
Trigger: a signed project moves into delivery intake. Current steps: collect sales notes → check required fields → clarify gaps → route → delivery accepts. Friction: incomplete inputs and no shared definition of ready. Simplify first: standardize required fields and name an intake owner.
Completed Five Decisions
Use AI to support the handoff after the process is clarified.
- Problem
- What should improve?
- Product
- Smallest usable result
- People
- Who owns each action?
- Production
- Sources and controls
- Proof
- How will the team decide?
Completed responses
- Problem
- Reduce clarification loops and make delivery acceptance visible.
- Product
- Draft a structured intake brief, highlight missing fields, and propose a routing category. No contract interpretation or automatic commitments.
- People
- Sales confirms source notes; operations lead owns intake; delivery lead accepts work; platform team supports tooling.
- Production
- Approved synthetic notes first. Mark missing information as unknown. Do not invent dates, budgets, scope, or customer commitments.
- Proof
- Compare complete-on-first-review rate, clarification loops, and total active time. Test missing and contradictory notes before real use.
Completed prioritization and route decision
Value 2: recurring friction, baseline not measured. Feasibility 2: structured drafting is scoped but untested. Source readiness 2: notes need standardization. Capacity 2: owner has limited time. Control readiness 2: human approval exists but must be tested. With equal weights the illustrative total is 10 of 15; that total grants no approval. Decision: standardize intake, then investigate a draft-only pilot. Route: Rent if an approved platform meets requirements; otherwise compare a bounded DIY prototype.
Completed evaluation cases
Ordinary: all required fields present → preserve facts and draft brief. Incomplete: budget missing → label unknown, request clarification. Contradictory: two delivery dates → surface conflict, do not choose. Out of scope: request to promise new scope → withhold commitment and route to delivery lead. Failure: source unavailable → keep the original manual intake path.
Completed proof plan
Planning assumptions: 80 requests/month at 20 active minutes each; proposed target 14 minutes, including review. Capacity if achieved: 80 × (20 - 14) ÷ 60 = 8 hours/month. No cash savings established. Track clarification loops and complete-on-first-review rate separately. Review after an authorized two-week pilot; stop if drafts invent commitments.
Completed handoff and next decision
Operations lead owns the shared definition of ready and weekly exceptions. Sales owns note accuracy; delivery owns acceptance. Days 1-30: define baseline and test with synthetic cases. Days 31-60: conditional limited pilot. Days 61-90: decide whether a maintained product is warranted. The first useful intervention may be the standardized form itself.
Record the next decision.
What will you do next, who owns it, and when will you review the evidence? Keep unresolved assumptions visible.