READINESS
Design partner readiness criteria.
The deployment posture, technical environment, and organizational context that signals a team is ready for design partnership. Design partnership means co-developing governance controls against real production constraints — not evaluating a product for future use.
Deployment posture
- —AI systems are in production or active piloting — governance is a live concern, not a future consideration.
- —The team can describe the execution boundary: where AI actions are authorized to occur and where they are not.
- —There is a named person responsible for AI deployment decisions.
Technical environment
- —The stack is identifiable: which models, which providers, which orchestration layer.
- —The team can describe at least one enforcement point where AI action could be blocked or recorded.
- —There is an existing audit or logging infrastructure, even if incomplete.
Organizational context
- —There is internal pressure to demonstrate governance — from compliance, legal, customers, or board.
- —The team has authority to change the execution path — not just observe it.
- —There is appetite to co-develop: to test, give feedback, and surface edge cases.
Governance gaps (good signal)
- —The team can name specific gaps: missing audit evidence, undefined failure behavior, untested revocation paths.
- —There is a known risk that the current posture does not cover.
- —Previous tools or frameworks have been tried and found insufficient.
Not a good fit (yet)
- —The team is at early research stage — governance concerns are theoretical rather than operational.
- —No existing AI deployment in a production or near-production context.
- —The team cannot make implementation decisions without lengthy procurement cycles.
- —The goal is a report or certification artifact rather than actual enforcement capability.
If none of the ready criteria apply yet, the AI Execution Boundary Assessment is a useful starting point for understanding where your posture currently stands.
Check your readiness posture.
The assessment takes under five minutes and maps your current deployment against the readiness criteria above.
Start assessment