WHAT YOU GET
A fast answer,
not a long engagement.
You don’t get a preliminary findings deck that recommends a Phase 2.
You get a complete, actionable snapshot of your AI portfolio, with clear recommendations you can act on the following Monday.
AI Initiative Heat Map
Active AI initiatives inventoried and scored across five dimensions: ROI potential, strategic fit, execution risk, organizational readiness, and urgency. Visualized as an interactive heat map that makes portfolio-level patterns immediately visible.
Kill / Watch / Investigate / Scale Filter
Every initiative categorized into one of four buckets with a brief rationale. This is the decision-support layer: it tells you not just what you have, but what to do about each piece of it.
The Short List
Your top 3 immediate priorities: what to stop and/or pause, what to accelerate, and what deserves a deeper look. Each recommendation backed by the scoring logic and the specific evidence from stakeholder interviews and data review.
30-Day Action Brief
The 3–5 highest-leverage moves you can make in the next 30 days, with clear next steps. A set of actions that move the portfolio from its current state toward a defensible position.
CONDITIONS FOR INTERVENTION
You need this
when you are dealing with...
Lack of AI Map
AI projects have been spun up in multiple places with no centralized view of what exists, what they cost, or how they connect to strategy.
Big Decision Approaching
A board presentation,
a budget cycle, or a vendor contract is coming and you need a clear independent read on your AI portfolio before you commit.
Burn Rate Questions
Cloud and API costs are climbing and you suspect that some of the spend isn’t producing value. You need someone to look at this who isn’t the one spending the money.
New to the Seat
You’ve inherited an AI portfolio you didn’t build. Before you make changes, you need a fast, unbiased read on what you’re working with.
Audit Fatigue
You’ve been pitched six-week assessments and discovery phases. You don’t need another long engagement. You just need answers.
Trust Gap
Internal teams have a view of their own work and vendors have a view of their own products. No one has an incentive to tell you what’s not working.
METHODOLOGY
Five working days.
Three stages. No filler.
01
Rapid Intake
Pre-engagement intake survey completed asynchronously before Day 1. Then 3–4 focused stakeholder interviews (45 minutes each) to map the landscape: what exists, who owns it, what it costs, and what the internal narrative says about each initiative. Parallel ingestion and categorization of all active AI efforts.
02
Analysis
Each initiative scored against a consistent framework (ROI potential, strategic fit, risk, readiness, and urgency). Competitive benchmarking to spot-check portfolio against comparable organizations. Initiatives classified into Kill / Watch / Investigate / Scale.
03
Workshop
A 2-hour live working session with key stakeholders. We walk through the heat map, pressure-test the classifications, align on the short list, and refine the 30-day action brief together in the room. Everyone leaves the session with critical understanding of key decisions to be made.
IMPACT
What changes in a week.
We replace ambiguity with a scored, classified portfolio and a set of immediate next steps. In five days, not five months.
A single, honest view of every AI initiative in your organization.
Clarity on what to stop, accelerate, and/or examine more closely.
Team aligned around the same data, scoring framework, and priorities.
A concrete 30-day action plan that doesn’t require another engagement to execute.
BEFORE TRIAGE
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AI initiatives are scattered across teams with no centralized view of what exists or what it costs.
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Each initiative has its own internal champion telling a different story about its value and progress.
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You suspect some of the spend is being wasted, but you don’t have the independent evidence to act.
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A larger strategic decision is approaching and you’re making it without a clear baseline.
AFTER TRIAGE
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Every AI initiative is inventoried, scored, and classified on a single heat map your entire leadership team can see.
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You know which initiatives to stop, which to watch, which to investigate, and which to scale — with the logic behind each call.
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The next 30 days have specific actions, named owners, and clear milestones.
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If deeper work is needed, you know exactly where and why — and your triage investment carries forward.
DIFFERENTIATED APPROACH
Independent judgment for high-stakes AI decisions.
Direct Senior Access
No junior staff, no handoffs. The person who scopes the triage is the person who does the work and presents the findings.
Extreme Independence
We don't sell implementation services or software. Our only bias is your business performance.
Fixed-Scope Speed
Intentionally narrow, time-bounded, and decision-focused engagement is designed to create useful clarity fast sprawling discovery phases.
NOT THIS
Large Firm Approach
A “strategic assessment” with a six-week discovery phase that tells you what you already know but is really just input into a pitch deck for a much larger project.
INSTEAD THIS
Rapid
Triage
One week. Fixed fee.
Complete deliverables. An honest answer you can act on immediately — whether or not you ever work with us again.
The consulting industry is built to
turn a question into a pipeline of projects.
Clients just want someone to
turn a question into an answer.
Having been an executive who hired consultants,
I always wanted a firm that could just give me
rapid clarity on an important issue.
Led by Iliya Rybchin
FOUNDER & PRINCIPAL
Top 25 AI Consultants & Thought Leaders
Consulting Magazine 2025
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Common questions, straight answers
Yes. The scope is deliberately tight.
We’re not evaluating your entire technology strategy. We’re mapping, scoring, and classifying your AI portfolio specifically. That’s a defined problem with a defined methodology, and five focused days is enough to deliver a clear, defensible answer. The constraint is access (stakeholders need to be available for interviews in the first two days) not time.
A typical Rapid Triage covers 5–20 active AI initiatives.
If your portfolio is significantly larger or spans multiple business units with independent efforts, we may recommend a phased approach or a Strategic Intervention. The scoping call will determine the right fit based on your specific situation.
An asynchronous intake survey completed before Day 1 (takes about 30 minutes), access to 3–4 stakeholders for 45-minute interviews in the first two days, and availability of documentation on active AI initiatives (budgets, roadmaps, status reports). We keep the burden on your team minimal. The heaviest lift is showing up for the Day 5 workshop.
No. The deliverables are designed to be useful on their own.
Many clients will take the heat map, the classifications, and the 30-day brief and execute independently. If the triage does reveal questions that require deeper work, your investment carries forward as a credit toward a Strategic Intervention — but that’s your choice, not our expectation.
Strategic Intervention is a 4–6 week engagement that includes full financial modeling, build/buy/partner analysis, and a comprehensive investment portfolio with board-ready materials.
Triage is a one-week sprint that maps, scores, and classifies your current portfolio. Think of it this way: Rapid Triage tells you what you’re working with. Strategic Intervention tells you what to do about it. Many clients start with Triage and proceed to Intervention if the portfolio warrants it.
Yes. Rapid Triage is a fixed-fee engagement scoped and agreed before work begins.
There are no hourly charges, no overruns, and no surprises. The fee covers all five days of work including the Day 5 workshop facilitation.
Yes. Stakeholder interviews are conducted via video.
The Day 5 workshop can be facilitated in person or virtually. Most clients choose a hybrid approach: remote for the intake and analysis phases, in person for the workshop. Either works.
You receive the full set of deliverables: the AI initiative heat map, the Short List, the Kill/Watch/Investigate/Scale classifications, and the 30-day action brief.
All materials are yours to keep and use. If the triage surfaces the need for deeper work, we’ll recommend a specific next step and your triage fee is applied as a credit. If it doesn’t, you execute independently.
There is no pressure to extend.
That is often the most useful outcome.
Rapid Triage is meant to clarify whether a deeper Strategic Intervention is warranted and where it should focus. If you decide to proceed, the Rapid Triage fee can be credited toward the larger engagement, subject to the agreed structure.
Either is possible. Some clients use Rapid Triage to look at one high-stakes initiative or vendor decision. Others use it to compare several active bets quickly. The key is keeping the scope tight enough that the one-week format produces real signal instead of superficial commentary.
It is not the right fit when leadership expects exhaustive financial modeling, deep implementation planning, or a broad enterprise-wide transformation design.
In those cases, Strategic Intervention or another deeper engagement is usually the correct starting point.
RAPID TRIAGE
One week.
One clear answer.
A complete picture of where your AI initiatives actually stand.
Not every situation needs a full strategic intervention.
Sometimes leadership needs a fast, independent first read: what appears healthy, what looks weak, what should be paused, and what deserves deeper analysis.
Rapid Triage is a focused one-week sprint that delivers a clear-eyed view of the AI portfolio and a practical near-term action brief.