Digital Automate it
Repeatable, rules-based, high-volume work: data entry, routing, first-line support, reconciliations. This is where AI takes work off your team.
Example: matching supplier invoices to purchase orders.
The 3 Buckets Framework for AI Readiness
Sort your work before you buy any AI.
The 3 Buckets Framework is a method for sorting a company's work into three groups: Digital work to automate, Judgment work to protect, and Legacy work to retire. It is step 2 of the readiness climb, because you can't prepare for AI until you know which work it should touch.
The three buckets
Judgment Protect it
Work that depends on relationships, taste and accountability. AI can prepare the ground, but a person makes the call. This is what makes your people valuable.
Example: deciding which client gets a discount and why.
Legacy Retire it
Low-value or dying processes. Automating them makes waste faster. Stop doing them before you spend money on AI.
Example: a weekly report nobody has opened in a year.
How to use it
- List the recurring work each team does in a normal week.
- Put every item in one bucket. If you argue about an item, it is probably Judgment.
- Retire the Legacy items first. They cost nothing to remove.
- Take the Digital list into the Primer, which measures whether your team and data are ready to automate it.
If you want the Digital bucket built for you, 3Buckets from Frank Labs turns it into running AI experts.