XLSX

The AI use-case scorecard

Twenty questions, scored out of one hundred, with compliance as a hard cap rather than an average. It is the diagnostic at the end of the HR report, published as a file so you can run it on your own use cases without us in the room.

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XLSX · 2.1

The AI use-case scorecard

Twenty questions, scored out of one hundred, with compliance as a hard cap rather than an average. It is the diagnostic at the end of the HR report, published as a file so you can run it on your own use cases without us in the room.

XLSX

What it is

The AI use-case scorecard

What it scores

One use case at a time, across four dimensions: whether the work is actually measurable today, whether the data and systems underneath it will carry the load, whether the organization can absorb the change, and whether it clears compliance in every jurisdiction it touches. Twenty questions in total, five per dimension.

Why compliance is a cap

Compliance does not average with the other three. It caps the total. A use case that scores 92 on everything else and fails the compliance sheet comes out at 40, flagged, with the failing question named.

Where it came from

It is the readiness diagnostic at the end of the HR report, generalized past HR. We run it in workshops, and it has been through eleven revisions since the first version, mostly because people found ways to score well on things that then failed.

What it will not do

It will not tell you which vendor to buy, it will not price anything, and it will not produce a business case. It tells you whether a use case is ready to be deployed, which is a different question and the one most programs skip.

What is inside

The structure, in order

01The use case, definedEight fields that force a use case to be one use case rather than a theme

02The twenty questionsFive per dimension, each scored 0 to 5, with the scoring guidance in the cell comment

03The score and the capCalculated, with the compliance cap applied and the failing question named

04The portfolio viewEvery use case you have scored, plotted on readiness against value

How to use it

Start with one use case

01Score one use case first, with two peopleNot a workshop, not the whole portfolio. One use case, two people who disagree about it, forty-five minutes. The disagreements are the output.

02Score the thing you have already decided to doThe scorecard is most useful on a use case that is already approved, because that is where a low score costs something and therefore means something.

03Keep the sheet, and score it again in six monthsThe number on its own is close to meaningless. The number moving is the signal.

04Do not use it to rank vendorsIt scores a use case, not a product. The questions assume the thing being scored is work your organization does rather than software somebody sells.

Works with

Pair it with the research

Research report2026.3

Installed is not working

The machine in the people function. What AI has actually been deployed across HR in mid-market and enterprise, globally and in India, what is holding weight, and the five gates a use case has to clear before it is worth deploying at all.

September 12, 202639 pages18 min read

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