In short
- Let people experience what is possible first, then have the conversation about strategy.
- Adoption only works if leadership and the shop floor move together.
- The order is not a law, but experience comes first because it makes the rest easier.
First see
As long as people have not experienced the technology themselves, it stays abstract, and abstract rarely leads to action. So we start by making tangible what is already possible today, inside their own work. We would rather put a team behind the tools for a few hours than give them a presentation. The conversation afterwards is a different conversation.
Then understand
Awareness without priority just makes noise. The second move is deciding where the technology is strategically relevant for this organisation and where it is not. You go from a scatter of loose signals to a handful of choices leadership will actually defend. Not every opportunity is worth taking, and saying which ones are not is half the work.
Whoever starts with strategy while the team has never touched the tools, builds a plan that doesn't land on the floor.
Then adopt
Strategy only becomes worth something when the work itself changes, and that takes leadership and the shop floor moving together. Work only at the top and nothing reaches the floor. Work only at the bottom and it never gets the mandate. In this phase we work on both sides, so the ownership survives after we leave.
The order is not a law
We adapt it per client where that makes sense. The core holds, though. If you start with strategy while half the team has never touched the tools, you end up with a plan that works on paper and stops at the office door. Experience comes first because it makes everything after it easier.
Ruben Horbach
Co-founder · Back From the Future
Ruben researches how organisations adopt AI meaningfully — not as technology, but as a change in work and people. He builds the agent infrastructure behind BFF and speaks about the near future of work.
