Free worksheet
Business Improvement Brief
What is preventing this part of the business from performing better, and what should change? A free worksheet to answer that for one part of the business before anything is bought, built or changed. Read it here, print it or download it to fill in. No email address needed.
Who should use it
- The person accountable for a process, team or service that should perform better, such as an owner, a finance or operations director or a team manager.
- Anyone choosing between improving existing tools, changing the process, automating, modernising, buying or building, before money is committed.
- A team that already uses AI or automation and wants to check whether the work itself has improved.
How to use it
Use it for one part of the business at a time, such as a single process or team. Work through the six sections in order, noting where the evidence runs out. A blank field is a question still to answer, and on its own says nothing about whether a problem exists.
Version 2.0, October 2026 (first published September 2026). It covers any part of the business, with or without AI. It is a working template: it contains no findings, savings or client examples.
Business Improvement Brief · Version 2.0
The worksheet
Six sections for one part of the business. The blank fields are questions for you to answer.
01Name the problem and who owns it
Describe the problem in plain words before naming any solution.
- Part of the business or process
- Accountable owner
- What is preventing it from performing better?
- What starts the work, and what counts as a finished, accepted result?
- Typical volume and measurement period
- What commercial outcome are you seeking, and by when?
02Establish the starting point
Map the work as it runs today, including checking, corrections and hand-offs. For each figure, record its source and whether it was measured or estimated.
Effort and time for each part of the work, with the evidence behind each estimate Part of the work Human effort per case Waiting or elapsed time Evidence/source Preparation and finding information Producing the initial result Checking and approval Corrections and exceptions Hand-offs and administration - Which systems and spreadsheets does the work rely on, and where does its data come from?
- How complete and accurate is that data, and who keeps it up to date?
- Cost: what does the work cost today, in staff time and tools?
- Delay: where does the work wait, and who is kept waiting?
- Quality: how is a good result judged, and how often is it missed?
- Risk: which errors or failures matter most, and what do they lead to?
- Customer impact: what do customers notice, and how do you know?
03Specify a change worth testing
- What would change in the process?
- Where could automation, AI or modernised systems help, and with which tasks?
- What must a person judge, approve or own?
- What should happen when the system is uncertain or fails?
- Which roles, teams or responsibilities would change, and who needs to learn a new way of working?
- What data, permissions or integration would the change need, and are they ready?
- Which options have you compared: improve existing tools, buy, build, change the process or stop?
Start with the simplest change that could work. Redesigning the process or making better use of a tool you already pay for may be enough, and AI is not always the answer.
04Define a fair test
Test on comparable work, and measure the baseline and the trial in the same way.
- Comparable tasks or cases
- Baseline observation period
- Trial observation period
- Quality and acceptance criteria agreed before the test
- Who reviews the output?
- Setup and training effort
- Recurring human effort and operating cost
- What evidence would make us continue, change course or stop?
05Connect improvement to a business result
A reduction in effort releases capacity. It becomes cash, revenue or profit only when a cost is removed or the time goes into work that earns money.
- Where would released capacity go?
- What specific cost could genuinely be avoided?
- What additional work is there demand to deliver?
- Could the benefit instead be faster turnaround, better quality, lower risk or a lighter workload?
- Which benefit can be measured without counting the same improvement twice?
06Make the next decision
Decision: investigate further / run a bounded test / improve existing tools / buy / build / change the process / stop.
- Owner
- Next action
- Date
- Evidence still missing
This brief is general working guidance. It does not predict savings and is not a client case study. Do not put confidential client or personal data into an AI tool your organisation has not approved.
When you want help with it
The brief is free and yours to use without us. If you want help, these are paid services, each agreed and priced before it starts.
Paid session · for smaller businesses and founders
AI Brief session
For smaller businesses and founders: 90 minutes with Dan working through the Business Improvement Brief on one recurring piece of work, then a written report within five working days. £1,250 fixed, excluding VAT. A review or a build is a separate decision.
Ask about a sessionWant a second pair of eyes on what the brief shows?
Tell us what you found. We will suggest the smallest sensible next step, which may be one of these services, a fix to something you already run or nothing at all.