AI strategy sprint · 8 weeks · partner-led
A board-grade AI strategy in 8 weeks. With a builder behind every page.
A partner-led pod — 1 partner, 1 strategy director, 1 principal engineer, 1 data architect, 1 governance lead. Five-lens diagnostic. Bottom-up value-pool model. Regulator-mapped roadmap. Named owners on every workstream. CVs in the room before contract.
Named partner. Named director. CVs in the room before contract.
5-lens diagnostic · sample client
Week 1–2
Diagnose
Week 3–5
Value pools
Week 6–7
Roadmap
Week 8
Board sign-off
8 weeks
Fixed-fee strategy sprint
5 lenses
Value · Data · Tech · People · Governance
62 %
Clients move a workstream into delivery in 90 days
0 juniors
Senior pod, no pyramid, named CVs
The trigger this page is built for
One of four executive moments. Pick the one that matches today.
The conversations that bring CXOs to this page tend to land in one of four shapes. The 8-week sprint is built for each of them — the entry workshop is shaped by which trigger applies.
Trigger 01
Board AI committee ask
The board has formed an AI committee or the CEO has been asked in a pre-read: "what is our AI position?" The executive needs the plan before the next quarterly meeting.
Trigger 02
New CEO mandate
A new CEO has been onboarded and AI is one of three explicit transformation pillars. The CEO wants the AI roadmap signed off within the first 100 days.
Trigger 03
Regulator inquiry
CBUAE / SAMA / DFSA has published an AI-governance expectation and the entity's model inventory is not in shape. The audit committee wants a roadmap that withstands supervisory review.
Trigger 04
Big-4 second opinion
The strategy house has quoted USD 4–8 million for a 16-week engagement with a junior-heavy team that does not build anything afterwards. The CXO wants a partner-led second opinion before signing.
The 5-lens diagnostic
One framework. Five lenses. Named, observable evidence per score.
A 1–5 maturity grid per lens, scored against observable evidence drawn from your data room, your platform reality, your interviews, and your governance committee minutes — not a survey.
Value
Use-case economics built bottom-up from your P&L lines. Each candidate use-case carries an NPV / payback / risk triple — challengeable by your CFO. Sequenced by dependency and data-readiness, not by hype.
Example finding: 23 candidate use-cases compressed to 9 prioritised, USD 180M 3-year NPV envelope, 6 movable into delivery within 90 days.
Data
Foundations & lineage. Where the data sits, how it flows, who owns it, what the gaps are. Mapped to the use-case priorities so foundational work is sequenced as a precondition, not a wishlist.
Example finding: customer 360 model blocked by a 14-month CDP rebuild — re-sequenced behind two lower-data-bar use-cases that fund the rebuild.
Cross-link: Data Engineering for AI
Tech
Platform readiness. MLOps maturity, infrastructure posture, hyperscaler relationships, and the LLM / sovereign-AI questions. The lens that surfaces the foundational platform workstream that every roadmap needs.
Example finding: notebook-only production estate prioritises an MLOps platform as the foundational workstream — see MLOps & AI Infrastructure.
Cross-link: MLOps platform · Sovereign LLM
People
Skills & operating model. AI talent depth, partner ecosystem, vendor stance, FinOps maturity for GPU spend. The lens that decides whether the roadmap is realistic at all.
Example finding: 3 senior ML engineers vs 18-month roadmap — central platform + federated product teams operating model, partner staffing for the first 9 months.
Governance
Regulator & risk. Model-risk frameworks, EU AI Act mapping, internal audit posture, board reporting cadence. The lens that determines whether the strategy survives the audit committee.
Example finding: SAMA model-risk update lands mid-roadmap — pre-emptive governance workstream sequenced ahead of credit-decisioning rollout.
Cross-link: Responsible AI & Governance
The 8-week sprint
Week by week. Partner present every week. On-site optional.
The cadence that compresses a 16-week Big-4 engagement into 8 weeks without losing depth — because the pod is senior all the way through.
Weeks 1–2
Diagnose
Partner-led interviews with the top 12 executives. Structured workshops with the next 30. Data-room audit. Existing-system inventory. 5-lens diagnostic scoring — Value, Data, Tech, People, Governance — with named, observable evidence per score.
12 partner-led interviews · 30 workshops
Weeks 3–5
Value pools
Bottom-up value-pool model from your P&L lines. NPV / payback / risk per candidate use-case. Build-or-buy decision per item, supported by our reference library of 60+ builds. Sequencing by dependency and data-readiness.
Bottom-up NPV envelope · build-or-buy per use-case
Weeks 6–7
Roadmap
Sequenced 24-month roadmap. Workstream by workstream. Named owner per workstream — Brocode engineer or architect, CV-visible. Regulator-mapped governance design woven into every workstream. Capex envelope, talent plan, operating model.
24-month roadmap · named owners · regulator-mapped
Week 8
Board sign-off
Board-grade deck. Partner-led readout. Defensible against audit-committee challenge. Optional: Brocode partner attends the board meeting as an independent voice for the readout, then steps back.
Board deck signed · readout delivered
The pod that works on your engagement
Five named people. CVs published before contract.
The section our customers screenshot and email to their CEO. You see the pod before you sign — and you can swap any member during diligence if you have a reservation.
Pod role
Partner
Engagement-level accountability. Present every week. Attends the board readout. CV-visible. Background typically combines 15+ years across strategy consulting, platform engineering, and regulator-side experience.
Pod role
Strategy Director
Owns the diagnostic and the value-pool model. Runs the executive interviews and the workshops. Authors the deliverable. Typically a former strategy-house principal with sector depth in banking, telco, or sovereign holdings.
Pod role
Principal Engineer
Owns the Tech lens. Authors the platform reference architecture. Translates "AI roadmap" language into specific platform, infrastructure, and model choices. Has shipped production AI at enterprise scale.
Pod role
Data Architect
Owns the Data lens. Maps your data estate, lineage, ownership, and gaps. Sequences foundational data work into the roadmap. Background in tier-1 bank or telco data engineering.
Pod role
Governance Lead
Owns the Governance lens. Maps CBUAE / SAMA / DFSA / FSRA / EU AI Act expectations against each workstream. Authors the board-deck governance section. Background typically combines regulator-side and model-risk-management experience.
Visibility
CVs before contract.
Every named pod member has a published CV with prior delivered engagements. No anonymous "consultants will be assigned." If a pod member is on extended leave we say so and substitute before the sprint starts.
Side-by-side
Brocode vs McKinsey, Big-4, sovereign advisory, and boutique strategy.
What each option actually delivers on the things a CXO sponsor cares about — partner presence, builder coupling, regulator depth, and commercial certainty.
| Capability | Brocode | McKinsey / BCG / Bain | Big-4 (Accenture / Deloitte / KPMG) | Boutique AI strategy | In-house strategy office |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Partner present every week (not just kickoff / readout) | |||||
| Engagement length | 8 weeks | 16+ weeks | 12–16 weeks | 6–10 weeks | Open-ended |
| Junior pyramid | No | Yes | Heavy | Limited | N/A |
| Builder behind every workstream | |||||
| Regulator-mapped governance (SAMA / CBUAE / EU AI Act) | Built-in | Add-on | Partial | Variable | Manual |
| Sample redacted board deck in lead-magnet | |||||
| CVs of named pod published before contract | |||||
| Fixed-fee, banded by entity size | Premium fixed | Variable | Variable | T&M |
Build-or-buy honesty
Use-cases we have recommended customers buy, not build.
A credibility marker. Brocode is a builder. The credibility of the strategy depends on the strategy being prepared to point customers at someone else when buying is the right answer. Here are five current examples — re-checked quarterly.
- 1
Mass-market customer email scoring — Salesforce Einstein / HubSpot are mature; we have recommended customers buy.
- 2
Standard computer-vision in retail loss-prevention — incumbents like Everseen and Veesion are the right answer.
- 3
Industry-standard demand forecasting — Databricks AutoML or Azure ML often beats a custom build at scale.
- 4
Generic call-centre WFM analytics — NICE and Verint cover the standard reporting layer well.
- 5
CRM-side sales-stage scoring — your CRM vendor's native scoring lands the use-case within weeks.
The three objections we hear in every framing call
What CXO sponsors push on first.
Objection 1
We already paid Big-4 for a strategy nobody could execute. Why is this different?
Partner-led, no juniors, named builder behind every workstream, fixed-fee 8 weeks. Big-4 delivers excellent thinking that hands off into a delivery vacuum. We deliver a roadmap with a delivery team standing behind every page.
Objection 2
Brocode is a builder — do all recommendations land on a Brocode build?
No. Explicit build-or-buy decision per use-case, supported by our 60+-build reference library and a published list of use-cases we have recommended customers buy. We have walked away from data-not-ready engagements on the record.
Objection 3
Eight weeks is fast. Our stakeholder map alone has 40+ executives.
Partner-led week-1 intensity: 12 executive interviews, 30 workshops, data-room audit, system inventory. Optional on-site CXO working group every week. The compression is possible because the pod is senior all the way through.
Anonymised references
Three sprints. Each available in full under NDA.
UAE tier-1 bank
Full strategy sprint delivered in 9 weeks (one-week extension agreed with the customer). 14 prioritised use-cases, USD 180M 3-year NPV envelope. 6 use-cases moved to delivery within 90 days of board sign-off. CBUAE-aligned governance pack delivered alongside the roadmap.
USD 180M NPV envelope · 6 in delivery in 90 days
Regional telco — operating model
AI operating model redesign. Central platform + federated product teams. Central FinOps function reduced GPU spend 31 % within 6 months of adoption. Three product squads stood up against the prioritised use-cases.
GPU spend −31 % · 3 product squads stood up
Sovereign holding portfolio
Portfolio-level AI maturity diagnostic across 8 operating companies. Cross-portfolio prioritisation defensible at the board IT-committee level. 4 OpCos identified as not data-ready, 9-month foundations programme proposed — and accepted.
8 OpCo diagnostic · 4 deferred to foundations
Sector-specific cases on Banking & Financial Services.
Free download
The CXO's AI Strategy Playbook — Method, Sample Board Deck, 5-Lens Grid
A 40-page CXO playbook covering the 8-week sprint method, plus the actual 5-lens scoring spreadsheet (Excel) and a redacted 24-slide sample board deck from a real bank engagement.
- The 8-week sprint method — week-by-week deliverable list
- The 5-lens diagnostic — maturity grid with observable evidence per score
- Value-pool model — bottom-up NPV / payback / risk methodology
- Sample redacted board deck (24 slides) from a real bank engagement
- The fixed-fee 8-week sprint contract template — banded by entity size
FAQ
What CXOs and board sponsors ask first.
The eight questions our partner answers in nearly every framing call. Direct, on the record, no marketing softening.
Three structural differences. First, the pod is partner-led with named senior engineers — no junior pyramid, no rotating bench. Second, every workstream in the roadmap has a named Brocode engineer or architect attached, so the customer can move directly from strategy to delivery without a second procurement. Third, the value-pool model is built bottom-up from your P&L lines, not transplanted from a global benchmark. The Big-4 deliverable is excellent thinking that hands off into a delivery vacuum; ours is a roadmap with a delivery team standing behind every page.
Partner framing call
Forty-five minutes with our partner. Confidential. No slideware.
Seven sprint-scoping fields — trigger, maturity, sponsor, entity scope, regulators, target board date, on-site cadence. We arrive at the call with a pod proposal and a draft sprint sequencing for your sector.
Or skip the form.
Message our partner directly on WhatsApp for a confidential conversation.
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