Last week I was teaching on the AI program for the UAE government in Dubai. This course has now been running for five years and each year we have an excellent cohort of students who go on to important leadership positions within the UAE. Of course, this year there is an extra buzz around generative AI. Our course has expanded to include those developments both at the practical hands-on level and also at a sophisticated technical level. I delivered a demanding series of lectures on the Architecture and implementation of Transformers which was well attended by enthusiastic course participants.
The highlight of my teaching week was actually focused in a core area of Interest for me: that of building organizational capability in AI, digitization, automation and other technologies. That is in building links between this incredible technology and real business problems in order to gain maximum return on investment. As I pointed out in my last blog post it is all too easy to throw money in the direction of technology but rather more difficult to realize a positive return on that investment.
The session I presented on building organisational capability around AI was very well received by the cohort in UAE. There is a huge amount of energy and enthusiasm in the UAE and it was clear to me that our attendees have a real desire to make it work. So, I wanted to follow up that presentation by outlining the Sent-AI-ance approach to organisational capability development around AI in this blog post.
The Sent-AI-model AI capability building model is illustrated below.
Sent-AI-ance is a ‘Systems Thinking’ approach to the problem of capability development. It has evolved over the last 7 years and is based on the following core ideas:
Technology alone is not enough : Capability building requires a Systems Thinking approach that integrates many components to gain significant ROI.
Problem first : Too many organisations appear to have a ‘technology first’ mindset in regard to AI: “AI is amazing! How can we use it?”. Rather, it is better to adopt the proven methodologies from Lean Six Sigma and Design Thinking that seek first to understand problems in a deep way, and only then look for appropriate solutions.
Training is not enough: You might be surprised to hear that as an educator I argue “Training is not enough!”. But a key emphasis of my courses and training is to put significant emphasis on highly realistic classroom based activities followed with real projects, delivering ROI within the workplace (for example my work with Oxford University and Smiths Industries).
The Sent-AI-ance model is an integrated approach that draws on the learning and practice of both Design Thinking and Lean Six Sigma. It uses a generally well-established framework to integrate training with positive ROI projects. Around that core it wraps necessary components of support and governance. For example, it is incredibly powerful to leverage cross-functional teams from within organisations to run fast-paced, incremental improvement projects. However, ‘newly minted’ practitioners are not always able to deliver effective improvements without support and mentoring. The Sent-AI-ance model provides for that by wrapping a component of support and mentoring to each project.
Organisations starting on their AI journey may not have the skills and bandwidth to execute ‘Proof of Concept’ projects or to commission large, more complex projects. Again, the Sent-AI-ance model provides a ‘Solution Foundry’ wrapper that solves exactly this problem. This is a way of both up-skilling the organisation and also to provide fast-paced, solutions.
There is a lot more to be said about the Sent-AI-ance Capability Building solution – and some of that will have to wait for another blog post. Of course, I would always like to welcome you to my frequent trainings and executive briefings if you want to follow-up on these ideas.
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