Facilitator guide
Facilitator guide
A complete run-of-show for delivering the AI Strategy Map Workshop independently. Includes scripted transitions, exercise instructions, timing cues, key questions, objection handling, and energy management tips.
Six modules across six hours, with two breaks and a 45-minute lunch. Total facilitation time: 5 hours 30 minutes.
Thorough preparation is the difference between a good workshop and a great one. Follow this timeline to ensure nothing is left to chance.
The physical environment shapes the quality of the conversation. These are non-negotiable requirements.
You need at least 3 meters of continuous wall space to mount the AI Strategy Map Canvas. This is the central artifact that the group builds throughout the day. If no suitable wall exists, use a large whiteboard on wheels or bring foam board panels.
Set the tone for the day: this is not a technology workshop. It is a strategy session. You are establishing credibility and creating psychological safety for executives who may feel uneasy about their AI knowledge.
Make eye contact with the most senior person in the room during the opening. Their body language sets the tone for everyone else. If they are leaning in, the room will follow. If they check their phone, you need to recapture them — ask a direct question in the next 60 seconds.
This exercise is built on a concept from Power and Prediction (Agrawal, Gans & Goldfarb). The core idea: we are in the period between AI's demonstration and its transformative adoption. Think about electricity — Edison demonstrated the light bulb in 1879, but it took until the 1920s for factories to be redesigned around electric power. In between, companies just bolted electric motors onto existing steam-powered layouts. The productivity gains were marginal.
The same thing is happening with AI right now. Most organizations are "bolting" AI onto existing processes. That works for quick wins, but it misses the real value: redesigning processes, decisions, and even business models around what AI makes possible.
Draw this spectrum on the wall or display it on screen:
Point Solution → Application Solution → System Solution
Here is what each level means:
Instructions for participants:
Walk to the wall and look at the distribution. In most groups, 80% or more of the sticky notes will cluster in the "Point Solution" zone. This is the key learning moment.
If a group claims to have mostly Application or System solutions, probe gently. Often what looks like an Application solution is actually a Point solution with ambitious plans. Ask: "Has this initiative actually changed any decision-making process, or is it still improving an existing one?" The distinction matters.
Surface the misalignment that almost always exists in a leadership team about what AI is supposed to deliver. The goal is not to solve it here — it is to make it visible, so the rest of the day has urgency.
The Balanced Scorecard Strategy Map was developed by Robert Kaplan and David Norton. It takes an organization's strategy and translates it into a set of linked objectives across four perspectives. The power of the map is the cause-and-effect logic that connects the perspectives bottom-to-top:
The logic reads bottom-up: capabilities enable processes, processes serve customers, customers drive financials. Every arrow on the map is a hypothesis: "If we invest in X capability, it will improve Y process, which will deliver Z customer outcome, which will drive W financial result."
Draw the four layers on the screen or a flip chart as you explain them. Use a simple stack: Financial on top, Learning & Growth at the bottom, with arrows pointing upward. This visual anchor will be referenced all day. If you have a printed canvas on the wall already, point to it as you explain each layer.
Stand at the wall-mounted canvas and walk the group through each quadrant. For each perspective, give 2-3 example objectives so participants understand the level of specificity you are asking for.
Financial Perspective:
Customer Perspective:
Internal Process Perspective:
Learning & Growth Perspective:
Prompt to read aloud: "At your table, answer this question: What financial outcomes must AI deliver for your organization in the next 18 months? Be specific. Not 'save money' but 'reduce client onboarding cost by 30%.' Not 'grow revenue' but 'generate EUR 500K in new AI service revenue.'"
Guide them to think in four categories:
Output: Each group writes 3-5 financial objectives on large sticky notes (one objective per note). Use green sticky notes for Financial.
Time: 15 minutes for group work, then 10 minutes for share-out.
For Companial Microsoft Partners, financial objectives often center on: growing Copilot and Power Platform implementation revenue, increasing recurring revenue through managed AI services, reducing delivery cost per engagement through AI-assisted scoping and documentation, and de-risking project profitability through better estimation. Prompt for these if the group does not surface them organically.
Prompt to read aloud: "Now shift your perspective. You are looking at your organization through the eyes of your clients — the SME businesses you serve. How should AI change the experience for your clients? What should they see, feel, and get from you that they do not get today?"
Guide them to think in four categories:
Output: 3-5 customer objectives per group on blue sticky notes.
Time: 15 minutes for group work, then 10 minutes for share-out and linking.
After placing the customer sticky notes on the wall, ask the group to draw the first cause-and-effect arrows. For each customer objective, ask: "Which financial objective does this serve?"
This is the first time participants physically draw arrows on the canvas. It is often a breakthrough moment — they see, visually, how customer value translates to financial outcomes. Take a moment to step back and let the group see the emerging pattern. Say: "Look at the map so far. Some financial objectives have three or four arrows pointing to them — those are your strategic priorities. Others have no arrows — that tells us something too."
Take a photograph of the wall before lunch. Participants sometimes rearrange sticky notes during the break, or cleaning staff may disturb the setup. A photo gives you a backup. Also, some participants will want to take their own photos — encourage it.
Before the exercise, introduce this concept from Power and Prediction:
Prompt: "Look at the customer objectives on the wall. Now ask: which internal processes must we improve or reinvent to deliver on those customer objectives?"
For Microsoft Partners, prompt these process areas:
Additional instruction: For each process objective, mark it as either "Independent" (can be improved on its own) or "Glued" (changing it requires changing other processes). This distinction will matter during prioritization in Module 5.
Output: 3-5 process objectives on orange sticky notes. Mark "G" on the back of glued ones.
Time: 15 minutes for group work, 10 minutes for share-out.
Energy dips after lunch. Combat this by: (1) keeping this exercise highly interactive — people should be standing at their tables writing, not sitting passively; (2) walking between tables energetically and asking probing questions; (3) using a visible countdown timer. If energy is still low, call a 2-minute "stand and stretch" before the share-out.
Introduce the framework from Ethan Mollick's Co-Intelligence:
Prompt: "What capabilities, culture, and infrastructure does your organization need to deliver on the process objectives you just identified? Think about what needs to be true in 12 months for those processes to work."
Three categories:
Additional instruction: For each capability, note whether the working mode will be Centaur (clear division) or Cyborg (deep intertwining). Write "CEN" or "CYB" on the sticky note.
Output: 4-6 learning & growth objectives on yellow sticky notes.
Time: 15 minutes for group work, 10 minutes for share-out.
For Microsoft Partners, a frequently overlooked L&G objective is building a customer success methodology for AI engagements. Most partners have implementation methodology but not adoption/success methodology. Prompt for this: "How will you ensure your clients actually adopt and get value from the AI solutions you implement? That requires a different skill set than building the solution."
Gaps are often more revealing than clusters. If the group identified a financial objective like "reduce delivery cost by 20%" but has zero initiatives mapped to it, that is a powerful conversation: "You agreed this outcome matters, but you have nothing in motion to achieve it. Is that a conscious choice, or an oversight?" Let the group sit with that tension.
Use the printed scoring matrix template. For each initiative, rate on three dimensions (1-5 scale):
1. Strategic Impact (1-5)
2. Feasibility (1-5)
3. Organizational Readiness (1-5)
Total Score = Strategic Impact + Feasibility + Readiness (max 15)
For Microsoft Partners, Feasibility scores should factor in the client's Microsoft ecosystem maturity: what M365 licensing tier do their SME clients typically have? Is Power Platform already deployed? Do they have Azure subscriptions? An AI initiative that requires Azure Cognitive Services will score lower on Feasibility if the target client base is still on M365 Business Basic. Be explicit about this — it is a common blind spot.
Scoring disagreements are healthy — they surface hidden assumptions. If the CFO scores Feasibility as a 2 and the CTO scores it as a 4, ask: "What do each of you see that the other might not?" Often the disagreement reveals a misunderstanding about scope, budget, or technical requirements. Capture these insights. Do not force consensus — average the scores and move on.
The scoring naturally produces a ranking. Identify the top 3 initiatives in the "Now" category. If there are more than 3, the group must choose. Ask:
If the group struggles to narrow down, use a simple dot-vote: each participant gets 3 dots (stickers or marker dots), place them on the initiatives they believe should be the top priorities. The initiatives with the most dots win.
From Chip and Dan Heath's Switch: when the journey feels too long, people give up before they start. The solution is to "shrink the change" — make the first step so small and concrete that it feels trivially achievable. For each initiative, the 30-day milestone should be a step that feels easy. The momentum from that small win will carry the team into the harder 60 and 90-day milestones.
Use the printed roadmap template. For each of the top 3 "Now" initiatives, complete the following:
For the top 3 "Next" initiatives, complete only:
Time: 15 minutes. If the group is large, assign one table per "Now" initiative, then share back in 5 minutes.
The "owner" discussion can be uncomfortable. Executives may try to assign ownership to someone not in the room. Push back gently: "If the owner is not in this room, we have a problem. It means the people who set the direction are not the people who own the execution. Can we assign someone here as executive sponsor with clear authority?" The ideal outcome is an owner who is in the room AND has the authority to make decisions about the initiative.
Public commitment creates accountability. The act of saying it out loud, in front of peers, is what makes it stick. Resist the urge to let people skip or give vague commitments like "I will think about it more." Coach toward specificity: "Can you make that more concrete? What exactly will you do, and by when?"
End on a high note. Thank the group genuinely. Call out 1-2 specific moments from the day that were particularly insightful or where the group made a breakthrough. Personal recognition matters — especially if there was a participant who was initially skeptical but became engaged. Acknowledge their contribution.
You will encounter these objections. Prepare your responses in advance so you can handle them confidently and keep the workshop moving.
Response: "That is one of the most common concerns, and it is usually based on a misconception. Many high-value AI applications do not require massive datasets. Copilot works with the documents and emails you already have. Power Automate works with your existing workflows. The question is not 'do we have enough data?' but 'are we using the data we already have?' Let us park the data question and focus on where AI can create value with what you have today. The data strategy will follow."
Response: "I hear this concern regularly, and the skepticism is healthy. But consider this: email was 'hype' in 1995, smartphones were 'hype' in 2008, and cloud computing was 'hype' in 2012. Each of those technologies transformed how businesses operate. The question is not whether AI will be transformative — it already is for early adopters. The question is whether you want to be learning the curve now, while the stakes are low, or later, when competitors have already moved. Today is about making sure that if you invest, you invest in the right places."
Response: "Every industry believes it is unique, and every industry is partially right. Your client relationships, your regulatory environment, your specific processes — those are genuinely distinctive. But the underlying business challenges are universal: serving clients better, reducing costs, managing risk, growing revenue. AI addresses those universal challenges in ways that can be adapted to your specific context. That is exactly what the strategy map does — it starts with your business objectives, not with AI capabilities."
Response: "That is valuable experience. Let me ask: why did it fail? In our experience, AI projects fail for one of three reasons: they solved a problem no one had, they were technically sound but nobody adopted them, or they were piloted in isolation without a path to scale. All three of those failure modes are strategy failures, not technology failures. The strategy map exists precisely to prevent them. So your past experience actually makes today more valuable, not less — you know what failure looks like, and you can use that knowledge to avoid it."
Response: "I understand budget pressure. But let me reframe: can you afford not to? Your competitors are investing. Your clients are starting to expect AI-enhanced services. And here is the real cost question: how much are you spending on AI initiatives that are not connected to a business outcome? In our experience, organizations without a strategy map spend roughly twice as much on AI and deliver half the value — because they spread resources across too many initiatives without clear priorities. This workshop saves money by focusing your investment."
Response: "That is the most important objection in the room, and I appreciate you raising it. It is exactly why we have the commitment round at the end: you will each state a specific, personal action with a date. And it is why the 90-day roadmap has named owners, not committees. The post-workshop deliverables give you the documentation to hold each other accountable. Change is hard — but it is easier when everyone in the room has made a public commitment."
A six-hour workshop demands active energy management. The content is strong, but if the group is exhausted or disengaged, it does not matter. Manage energy as deliberately as you manage time.
Deliver all five artifacts within 5 business days. The quality and speed of the follow-up directly affects whether the workshop leads to action. Late or sloppy deliverables signal that the work was not taken seriously.
A clean, designed version of the wall-mounted strategy map. Include all four perspectives, all objectives (with exact wording from the sticky notes), and all cause-and-effect arrows. Highlight the 3-4 strategic themes that emerged. Deliver as PDF and editable PowerPoint. This is the artifact the client will share with their board — it must look professional.
A table listing every initiative discussed, with its scores on Strategic Impact, Feasibility, and Readiness, the total score, and the Now/Next/Later classification. Include a brief description and the primary strategy map objective each initiative serves. Deliver as Excel and PDF. The client will use this for budget allocation and governance decisions.
The three "Now" initiatives with named owners, 30/60/90 day milestones, and success metrics. The three "Next" initiatives with preparation steps and readiness triggers. Deliver as a one-page visual roadmap (PDF/PowerPoint) and as a detailed project brief (Word/PDF). The visual roadmap should be printable on A3 for wall display.
A 2-3 page document for the C-suite (including those who were not in the room). Structured as: (1) why this workshop was conducted, (2) key findings and alignment achieved, (3) strategic themes identified, (4) top 3 priorities with rationale, (5) recommended next steps. Written in the language of business outcomes, not AI technology. This is the document the CEO uses to brief the board.
A brief document with: (1) a proposed 30-day check-in meeting with initiative owners, (2) a quarterly strategy map review cadence, (3) specific capability gaps that need external support, (4) recommended next engagement (e.g., Playing to Win Sprint, Adoption Accelerator). This is the bridge to ongoing work. Include a clear call to action and contact information.