Fast Wins in under 30 Days: How to Prove AI ROI Without Blowing Up Your Ops

1. Exception Monitoring → Instant Alerts

   Recurring problem buried in a portal? A lightweight browser automation can check a page, detect a condition, and notify the right people in minutes.

   Impact: hours of manual checking removed; faster response; clean audit trail.

2. Proposal / Doc Drafting in Minutes

   Turn intake forms + past samples into assembly-line documents. AI drafts; human approves.

   Impact: 60–80% faster with higher consistency.

3. Follow-Up That Actually Happens

   Automate the boring parts: summarize the call, assign tasks, send the recap, and schedule nudges until the loop closes.

   Impact: fewer dropped balls, higher close rates, happier customers.

Guardrails that keep things safe (and sane)

• Privacy-first: process locally or sanitize payloads; send only what’s needed.

• Least privilege: read-only unless writing is essential; narrow scopes.

• Human approval: AI drafts, people approve (especially external comms).

• Logging & rollback: every automation has an “off switch” and a log.

• Naming & transparency: clear labels so nobody’s surprised by the bot.

Your 30-Day Fast Wins checklist

• Pick 3 candidates: repeatable, measurable, low-risk.

• Ship one workflow end-to-end (done > perfect).

• Add guardrails (approval, logging, alerts).

• Reinvest time into one growth loop.

• Publish a 1-page result (with a chart).

• Decide the next two to scale.

Implementation templates (steal these)

Scorecard fields: Owner • Workflow • Baseline time • New time • Volume/week • SLA • Error rate • Notes

SOP skeleton: Purpose → Trigger → Inputs → Steps → Approvals → Outputs → Exceptions → Owner → Change log

Guardrail pack: Test data only • Staging first • Alert on failure • Rollback steps • Weekly review

How I can help

I run this as a 30-Day Fast Wins Sprint:

• Week 1: Discovery + shortlist

• Week 2: Automation #1 live

• Week 3: Growth loop live

• Week 4: Results + playbook