Work Through the Steps
Find the Work Already Happening
Start with one department or business process. Ask people what they draft, summarise, classify, recommend or automate with AI, including features inside software they already buy. Check trial accounts and informal use as well as approved tools. Record what you have actually confirmed, with a link to the relevant product information or an internal note. Mark unanswered questions as unknown.
Give Each Use Its Own Row
Describe the task and intended result in plain language. A product name alone is not enough: drafting public help answers and summarising confidential meeting notes need different decisions, even in the same tool. Identify the provider, relevant product or model version where known, and whether the use is proposed, being piloted, live or retired.
Follow the Inputs and Outputs
Name the data that enters the tool, where it comes from and what is allowed. Identify who receives the output and who could be affected if it is wrong or disclosed. Include relevant connections to documents, customer systems or other tools. For generative AI, ask about incorrect content and sensitive information as well as productivity. Record supplier retention or data-use questions that remain unresolved.
Name the Owner and Human Check
Assign a business owner who can answer for the use and its limits. Specify who checks outputs, what they check and when they can reject or stop the work. For example, checking a customer answer against approved sources is more useful than writing human review required. Record the approval decision and its supporting evidence separately from the fact that a licence has been purchased.
End With a Decision to Revisit
For every open issue, write a next action, an owner and a review date or trigger. A change of provider, model, input data, audience or connected permissions may change the decision. Keep previous decisions traceable when updating a row. A completed register helps organise review; it does not establish that an AI system is safe or that its outputs have been tested.
A Help-Answer Pilot
Birch Lane Services and Textdesk Enterprise are fictional. The business is considering an AI assistant that drafts answers from its public help articles.
- Owner
- Support lead
- Permitted inputs
- Published help articles only; customer tickets are outside the pilot.
- Human check
- A support agent verifies the answer and source links before sending it manually.
- Open decision
- Confirm supplier retention and data-use terms before including customer information.
Watch For
- Listing suppliers without identifying the different tasks people use them for.
- Recording approved without the decision owner, evidence or permitted-use limits.
- Leaving unknown data handling or missing oversight hidden in an otherwise complete row.
Your Next Step
Complete the register with the people doing the work. Choose the first unresolved data, supplier or oversight question to review, and assign it to someone who can resolve it. Keep links to evidence rather than copying sensitive material into the register.