FAQ
Before working together, managing directors and leadership teams usually ask about where to start, cost, duration and confidentiality. Whatever stays open here, we clear up in the Clarity Call.
Where do I start?
With the Clarity Call. Beforehand you answer a ten to fifteen-minute survey in English. Your first assessment is ready within 48 hours, then I suggest a time. The video call takes 30 to 45 minutes and is free. If you'd rather talk first without the survey, ask for a 20-minute call.
Can I try something before we talk?
Yes. The Free tools page has eight tools in three groups. To understand your organization there's the Pattern Check and the Clarity Loop app. For your rules there are three worksheets you fill in on screen and the white paper “What AI Tests in Your Rules” with a count for yourself.
On AI there's the AI Quick Scan, the Savings Calculator, the AI Impact Simulation and a cheat sheet on twelve misconceptions about AI governance. On top of that there are hacks for organization and AI you can try out next Monday.
None of them needs a sign-up. Your browser processes your answers and only stores them if you save them as a file yourself. Only if you want the result of the simulation as a PDF do you give your name and email address.
Don't we have this already, with our org chart and rules of procedure?
In part. Org chart, rules of procedure, job descriptions and approval rules set out who reports to whom and who may sign what. They rarely say who prepares, decides and checks in your key processes, or who delivers and takes over between departments. That has grown up alongside, as a shortcut or a shared agreement.
Organizational design starts with what you already have. It takes the written and the unwritten rules together and reorganizes things where neither fits the work anymore. What works stays as it is. Quite often the org chart doesn't change at all.
Do we need the design first, or can we go straight to the constitution?
That depends on whether your structure is already in place. If responsibilities, meetings and handovers are settled and your leadership team sticks to them in daily work, you can commission the organizational constitution directly. It then records what applies even in a conflict and how the rules can be changed.
If topics go round several meetings before anyone decides, or work waits at the handovers, start with organizational design. Otherwise the constitution fixes a structure that doesn't fit yet. Straight after the design it costs €2,900 less, or €3,900 less with a works council or a multi-tier legal structure.
What happens if our leadership team can't agree?
It happens, especially when a decision is to be made elsewhere in future. That's why your leadership team first sets the criteria for judging the options. If there's still no agreement after that, you go with the option nobody has a reasoned, serious objection to.
If such an objection remains, the managing director decides, gives the reasons and sets a review date. Until then the solution runs as a trial. At the review, the measure shows whether it stays. I have no say on individual people. Responsibility remains with your managing director. The Organizational Design page has the details.
What does working together cost?
Prices for the main offers are on the Work page, the others on each offer's own page, all plus VAT where it applies.
Free starting points are the tools, the AI Quick Scan and the Clarity Call. The Rule Inventory costs €900 online, or €1,400 on site in German-speaking countries. The AI Inventory costs €2,900 (€1,400 below 50 employees), the Management Baseline at €2,900, and a Checking Load Assessment or Commitment Inventory at €3,400. A Rule Redesign starts at €5,400, the Quarterly Review at €1,200. Organizational design costs €12,900 for up to about 150 employees, €18,900 up to 500 and from €28,000 above that. An organizational constitution starts at €9,800. The annual mandate (design and constitution for working with AI, in one year) starts at €48,000.
How long does it take, and how much of our time does it need?
A Rule Inventory takes ninety minutes. A Management Baseline takes about three weeks. A Checking Load Assessment and a Commitment Inventory take two to three weeks. The Checking Load Assessment needs half a day and two meetings from you. The Commitment Inventory adds three to five 45-minute conversations, the extended version also a half-day session with the leadership team. Organizational design takes six to ten weeks, with four or five three-hour workshops for your leadership team. An organizational constitution takes four to six weeks.
What's the difference between the Management Baseline and the Checking Load Assessment?
The Management Baseline surveys your managers and shows how your management system works, compared with 458 organizations. The Checking Load Assessment doesn't survey anyone. Using exports from systems you run anyway, it measures what reaches your reviews and approvals and how much time they get. An existing Management Baseline report is credited.
What does AI literacy mean for a company?
The EU AI Act requires companies that use AI to take measures that support their staff's AI literacy. It doesn't prescribe a fixed level per person. Many people think of training first.
Training helps. For a company, though, what counts is whether the people who take over AI results know what applies, and whether they have the time and authority to check those results. The AI Inventory and the annual mandate clarify this. On legal questions, your lawyer and your data protection officer advise you.
What is the Organization Twin, and who is Management Insights?
The Organization Twin is a diagnostic tool from Management Insights AG in Switzerland, developed over 25 years and used in more than 500 organizations. I'm COO of Management Insights and have analyzed about 120 companies with it myself. The survey runs on their platform. That's why you see their page when you fill it in.
What happens to our answers and data?
Individual answers stay confidential. The Organization Twin shows patterns in the system and doesn't assess individual people. For the Checking Load Assessment, exports your systems produce anyway are enough, such as approval logs or ticket data. The privacy policy sets out in detail what gets stored.
Do you work online or on site?
Calls, evaluations and workshops run online, in English or German, wherever you are. On-site days are possible only in German-speaking countries and are listed separately with travel costs. My office is in Wachtberg near Bonn, Germany.
Do you also work with corporate groups?
Yes. For corporate divisions and business units, the same formats are available on a larger scale, with more coordination and documentation that works for group committees. A group Management Baseline starts at €6,900, an organizational constitution for several legal entities at €24,000.
What do we have in hand at the end?
A short list of decisions your leadership team can make, with the smallest sensible step first. Depending on the format, you also get figures, a written set of rules or a mapping of your AI uses. If it turns out you don't need a further step, I'll tell you that just as plainly.
When should I ask someone else?
For choosing AI tools, for training in how to use them and for legal questions, I'm happy to name contacts with more specialist expertise than mine. I help you set up your organization so that good work gets easier, with AI and without.
Do you also give talks?
Yes, on organizations, decisions and AI, based on my books. An interactive online talk for up to 50 people starts at €2,000, a keynote with discussion for large audiences at €4,000, each plus VAT and travel costs where they apply.