How We Guided a Development Team Through AI Integration

When artificial intelligence promises to transform how organizations work, the biggest challenge isn't finding AI tools—it's knowing which ones will actually move the needle for your specific team and workflows. This was exactly the challenge facing our client, a midsize software development consultancy, when they approached 110True.

They were experiencing scattered AI adoption with no strategic direction. Individual team members were experimenting with various AI tools, but the organization lacked a cohesive approach to optimize AI for their specific business needs.

The solution? Our 110True AI Activation Session—a collaborative discovery process that transformed AI experimentation into strategic implementation. Hosted at the Cambridge Innovation Center in Boston, this intensive mapping session was designed to uncover what was already working, identify gaps, and prioritize their next moves.

The Challenge: From AI Buzz to Business Impact

Our client exemplified a common pattern we see across organizations attempting to harness AI's potential: enthusiasm without strategy, experimentation without coordination, and individual adoption without organizational alignment. Some developers were using AI coding assistants, designers had discovered creative AI tools, and project managers were exploring automation solutions. But these efforts were fragmented and disconnected, creating missed opportunities for organization-wide adoption and impact.

Their team needed to shift from scattered individual trials to a unified, strategic approach to AI adoption. More importantly, they needed buy-in from their entire team—not just leadership.

Our Three-Phase AI Activation Methodology

We facilitated this session with 14 of our client’s key team members, representing every functional area of their business.

Phase 1: Current State Discovery

We began with a discovery session where each participant received sticky notes with one directive: document every AI tool they were currently using or had experimented with.

The exercise immediately revealed surprises. Tools that leadership assumed were widely adopted had limited usage, while other AI solutions were being quietly leveraged across unexpected departments. By the end of the session, we had created the organization's first complete picture of existing AI adoption, revealing both hidden successes and missed opportunities.

Phase 2: Strategic Organization

Next, we guided the team through our categorization framework. Together, we organized all discoveries into seven core business functions:

• Design - Creative workflows and visual content generation
• Development - Code assistance, testing, and technical implementation
• Project Management - Planning, tracking, and team coordination
• Marketing - Content creation and campaign management
• Sales - Lead generation and deal flow
• HR - Recruitment, onboarding, and team development
• Finance and Operations - Analysis, reporting, and process optimization

This visual mapping exercise revealed critical insights: some categories showed extensive AI adoption while others had surprising gaps. The patterns pointed to both quick wins and strategic opportunities.

Phase 3: Next-Level Identification

Our final discovery phase had two components:

Wish List Tools: We asked participants to identify AI solutions they'd heard about or wanted to explore—not random suggestions, but tools with proven track records they hadn't yet implemented.

Wish List Functions: Perhaps most valuable, we facilitated discussion around this question: "Where would you most benefit from AI simplifying your current processes?" The responses revealed automation opportunities we hadn't previously identified. When multiple developers independently mentioned wanting better code assistance tools, and the potential time savings could be quantified in hours per week per developer, this represented both high frequency and high perceived value. 

Facilitating Prioritization

With comprehensive discovery complete, we guided the team through our prioritization framework. Working collaboratively, we identified opportunities that met two key criteria:

1. High frequency - Multiple team members expressed similar needs
2. High perceived value - Clear potential for significant business impact

We facilitated detailed conversations about each high-priority item, ensuring the team reached genuine consensus rather than defaulting to leadership preferences or trending technologies. This collaborative approach created stronger buy-in since team members helped shape the decisions they'd ultimately implement.

The Results: Five AI Priorities

Through our collaboration process, five clear implementation priorities emerged:

1. Cursor Implementation - Integrating agentic AI directly into development workflows
2. ChatGPT Standards - Establishing organization-wide best practices and usage guidelines
3. AI-Enhanced Proposals and Pitch Decks - Streamlining client-facing material creation
4. Business Intelligence Enhancement - Leveraging AI for advanced data analysis and insights
5. Fathom Adoption - Automating meeting transcription and follow-up documentation

All of these priorities shared a common theme of offloading repetitive work to AI tools so that our client’s people could devote more time to the creative and strategic aspects of their work.

Implementation and Early Results

Our engagement didn't end with strategic planning. We helped the client establish implementation milestones for each priority and set up tracking systems in their Notion workspace—an "AI Activation Hub" for ongoing progress management.

We found it essential to establish clear ownership and accountability during the session itself. By facilitating public commitment to timeframes and milestones, we helped implementation owners carve out dedicated time for AI implementation while maintaining their core responsibilities.

The results validated our approach: within just weeks of our session, two of the five priorities have been rolled out. Their project management group successfully implemented Fathom, with team members reporting a savings of up to an entire day every week. Their engineering team successfully implemented Cursor, with time savings that are expected to be even greater than one day per week, per developer.  The remaining priorities are progressing with clear ownership and timelines.

Why Our AI Activation Methodology Works

Several factors make our approach effective across client engagements:

Cross-functional inclusion: Involving every department ensures comprehensive discovery and prevents siloed solutions that fail at scale.

Optimal group dynamics: We've found 15 participants to be the maximum for maintaining engagement and meaningful contribution. Larger groups lose focus; smaller groups miss critical perspectives.

Data-driven discovery: Requiring specific metrics elevates discussions beyond hypothetical benefits and instead focuses on concrete business impact.

Visual collaboration: Our sticky note mapping process creates both energy and a shared understanding that verbal discussions alone cannot achieve.

Consensus building: Rather than imposing external recommendations, we facilitate internal discovery that creates genuine team buy-in.

The Bigger Picture

Our AI Activation Session methodology isn't just about tool selection—it's about organizational change management. By involving the entire team in discovery and prioritization, we created buy-in that top-down AI mandates rarely achieve.

The collaborative approach also revealed that our client’s team was already more AI-savvy than leadership realized. The session didn't just identify new opportunities; it amplified existing successes and built on top of them.

For organizations considering their own AI strategy, our advice is simple: start with your people, not your tools. The most sophisticated AI implementation will fail without team understanding and engagement.

110True specializes in helping businesses navigate strategic AI implementation through collaborative discovery processes. Our AI Activation Sessions provide the foundation for sustainable, organization-wide AI adoption that drives measurable business impact. Ready to transform your team's AI potential into strategic advantage?

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