AI automation
How to find AI automation candidates by shadowing real work
Before you pick an AI tool, follow the person doing the job. Ten interview questions help you find what's safe to automate and where a human should stay.
5 min read
LeanX AX Insights
Practical guides to AI at work
Short, practical guides on AI agents, workflow automation, and running your first AI pilot. Written for busy managers.
English guides
12 guides
AI agents
AI workflow or agent: how to pick the right one for a task
Not every task needs an autonomous agent. For tasks with fixed inputs and outputs, a workflow may be enough. Use this decision table to choose based on predictability, exceptions, and permissions.
4 min read
AX pilots
The 2-week AX pilot checklist for rolling out an AI agent
AI agent rollouts fail without a task contract, staged permissions, human review, and logs. Run this 2-week pilot checklist before you scale up.
8 min read
AI operations
The 4-step AI delegation ladder: read, organize, draft, execute
Hand off work to AI in four steps: read, organize, draft, then limited execution. Move to the next step only when you can explain how the current one is checked, stopped, and undone.
5 min read
AI agents
AI agent permissions: split read, draft, and execute
Give an AI agent one stage at a time. Let it read the files it needs and draft into a review space. Execute only after a specific approval. Here's how to split permissions by stage.
4 min read
AI operations
How to turn team know-how into an AI agent skill
Your best performer may already know review criteria your AI is missing. Package that judgment into an Agent Skill others can call up, with a ready-to-edit SKILL.md template.
4 min read
AI agents
Context engineering: 7 reasons your AI agent keeps failing
Rewriting the prompt again won't fix an agent that read a stale policy or lost track of its own state. Here are seven context failures to check before you touch the model.
5 min read
AI agents
The AI agent harness: what to define before a longer prompt
Before you write a longer prompt, set up the agent's harness. Define what it can read, which tools it can use, and what it carries forward. Then set how far it can act and when it stops for a human.
4 min read
AI agents
How to build an AI agent evaluation set before you launch
Before you ship an AI agent, build a 20-case test set covering normal inputs, common exceptions, and forbidden actions, not just one good demo.
4 min read
AI operations
Measure AI adoption by completed work, not usage count
Usage counts don't show if AI actually finished the job. Track one task's start, review, and completion for a week to see real value.
4 min read
AI agents
How to calculate AI agent ROI: cost, approval, and lead time
AI agent ROI is time saved and faster processing minus every real cost — model, tool, review, and failure. Here's the formula and a sample P&L.
4 min read
AI automation
Why outreach automation needs a state machine before an AI agent
One builder reported spending 44+ hours on a PR outreach build planned for 10. The lesson: build lead status, evidence fields, and approval before AI drafting.
4 min read