Technology guides

Read up before you start a project.

These four guides cover questions we hear about AI, custom software, automation, and websites. Each includes research, questions to ask your team, and steps for planning a project.

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Find the guide you need.

Each guide links to its sources and includes a checklist or project plan. The advice doesn’t depend on buying a particular vendor’s product.

10 pages · October 2026

AI Readiness Before AI Spend

Work through seven areas of AI readiness to decide whether an idea is worth testing and what you need to prepare first.

  • Seven areas to review: goals, processes, data, technology, oversight, people, and measurement
  • A scorecard to identify gaps and the work needed to address them
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11 pages · October 2026

When Off-the-Shelf Stops Fitting

Compare buying, adapting, and building software when your current tools no longer fit. Learn how to plan a first release and account for long-term support.

  • Signs you’ve outgrown a tool or workaround
  • Questions to help you compare new software with changes to your existing tools
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11 pages · October 2026

AI Agents at Work

Decide when an AI agent is worth trying, what it should be allowed to do, and how people will check its work. Includes a plan for a 60-day trial.

  • The differences between fixed automation, AI assistance, and AI agents
  • Questions to decide whether a task needs an agent
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10 pages · October 2026

Is Your Website AI Agent Ready?

Learn how to make your website’s information easier for AI agents to find and read, and decide whether agents should be able to take actions on behalf of visitors.

  • What agents may try to do on information sites, web apps, and online stores
  • Four areas to review: finding information, understanding it, checking trust, and taking action
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Where the topics overlap

Good software starts with understanding the work.

Whether you’re building an app or trying AI, you’ll need to understand the process, check the information it uses, and decide who will look after it. You’ll find those questions throughout the guides.