Playbooks
How I actually run this work. Written for people stepping into AI leadership roles and for the people I mentor. Anonymised, field-tested, no theory for theory's sake.
AI Enablement Lead
The first 60 days and beyond: listen and map, ship a governed first win, then turn it into repeatable capability. Includes the evaluation frame, the governance skeleton and the metrics that matter.
AI Delivery Manager
Running AI work to a date: the weekly-delivery quarterly-judgement rhythm, one-way-door decision gates, hard deadlines with uncertain scope, recovery patterns and flow metrics.
AI Architect
Designing systems people must trust: evidence-first architecture, abstain-by-default, human gates as components, evals as the contract, and the metrics that keep answers checkable.
CTO / Director of Technology
Answering the board AI question: the build-vs-buy test, portfolio over projects, organisation topology, governance as a rhythm, and escaping the integration tax.
One job, many titles
The market posts this work under different names: AI Enablement Lead, AI Adoption Leader, AI Transformation Lead, Head of AI Adoption. The method is shared; the emphasis differs.
- Enablement emphasises tools, skills and capability: the Enablement Lead playbook covers the full arc.
- Adoption emphasises behaviour change and usage: the champions, metrics and capability-transfer sections carry that weight, and the benchmark is behavioural: adoption from 12% to 87% in 90 days on a global programme.
- Transformation emphasises operating model and strategy: start from the advisory services (current-state audit, discovery sprint) and the governance skeleton in the playbook; the organisational programme runs through Leadership Tribe.
The embedded, client-side version of this work is increasingly hired as Forward Deployed Engineering: build the system inside the client's environment, alongside their team. The delivery and architect playbooks cover that ground; the working model is the one this site describes throughout: build with you, transfer capability, leave.
Whichever title the role carries, the success test is the same: the organisation can run it without you.
Stepping into one of these roles, or hiring for one? Email hello@krishnachodipilli.com.