Macro-Design · Five sessions over roughly six weeks (one per phase), followed by a 90-day plan

VERIFY Method (Organisational AI Capability)

A six-move method for building AI capability at the organisational altitude rather than the individual one. The premise: AI value capture comes from how work is organised, not from how skilled individuals are. Each letter is anchored to an independent evidence source, and each produces a concrete artefact. Runs as five sessions producing five artefacts, which assemble into a 90-day plan.

When to use VERIFY Method (Organisational AI Capability)

Use when an organisation is answering the AI question with training and getting no measurable value. Use it before a tool rollout, not after. It is deliberately not an AI-fluency course: it assumes fluency is the floor and workflow redesign is the lever.

How VERIFY Method (Organisational AI Capability) works

The six letters group into five phases of work: V (frame and verify the value); E+R (set the standard and redesign the work); I+F (coach the work and lead from the front); Y (sequence the system); and an integration phase that locks the plan and the accountability relationships. Leadership (F) is a thread from day one, not only a fifth step — F is where you make it systematic.

Phases of VERIFY Method (Organisational AI Capability)

  1. V — Verify the value: find where AI value actually sits in the work, before any tool decision
  2. E — Establish the standard: write, in one page, what good looks like and who signs off
  3. R — Redesign the work and the roles: rebuild the workflow as if AI were there from step one
  4. I — Invest in coaching: budget for coaches embedded in teams, not trainers delivering curriculum
  5. F — Front it from leadership: senior people use AI visibly, moving from we are doing to I am doing
  6. Y — Yield lasting capability: sequence the five levers into one system with output metrics

Key principles

  • Training is the wrong lever. Workflow redesign is the number-one organisational predictor of AI EBIT impact (McKinsey, ~2,000 firms), and only 21% have done it.
  • The jagged frontier is real. Inside it AI lifts quality 40%; outside it, people with AI are 19 points more likely to be wrong than people with none. The standard is the judgement of when to trust.
  • Capability lives in the system, not in the heads. Novices gained +34%, top performers ~0% (Brynjolfsson, 5,179 agents). Exposure happens by default; capability accumulates by design.
  • Coach, do not train. A coach is a colleague slightly ahead, embedded in the team, with protected time. A trainer delivers content to a room.
  • Leadership visibility is a forty-point swing. Positive sentiment moves 15%→55% on one behavioural variable (BCG).
  • Measure output, never attendance. Licence uptake, completion rates and literacy scores corrupt the programme.
  • Capability compounds. The first workflow redesign takes twelve weeks, the second six, the third three.

Best for

  • Organisations past the pilot stage with no measurable AI value
  • Leadership teams who have bought licences and seen nothing change
  • L&D functions being asked to build AI capability with a curriculum
  • Transformation leads who need artefacts, not enthusiasm

Considerations

  • It will not make participants AI-fluent. That is the floor, and a separate sibling programme.
  • The bottleneck you find in V is usually political — it is somebody's job. That is why almost no one looks.
  • Without a named sponsor who has agreed the programme is happening, the F conversation never gets scheduled and the method stalls.
  • Apply pages are the deliverable, not a warm-up. Budget at least an hour each.

Attribution & sources

Marco van Hout · Demadera — the AI Capability Playbook: the VERIFY method

Primary source

Related frameworks

  • liberating-structures
  • systems-thinking
  • communities-of-practice

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