Playbooks

Last updated: 2026-08-14

Six practical AI playbooks by Shahzad Asghar: AI governance, AI security and assurance, sovereign AI strategy, AI centres of excellence, use case discovery and readiness, and workforce capability. Each states the decision it helps you make, gives twelve rules of thumb, provides templates usable without modification, and lists the signals that tell you the approach is failing.

  • AI Governance: A Practical Playbook
    How to set up AI governance that produces decisions rather than principles. Decision rights, tiering, approval gates, and a model register schema you can… Templates: AI Model Register schema, Approval Gate checklist.
  • AI Security and Assurance: A Practical Playbook
    Securing AI systems where the real exposure sits: data paths, agent authority, and vendor supply chain. Includes a vendor assurance question set and an AI… Templates: Vendor assurance question set, AI control checklist, incident triage sheet.
  • Sovereign AI Strategy: A Practical Playbook
    Turning sovereign AI ambition into a control set you can afford. Which layers to hold, what to sequence first, and how to budget the decade rather than… Templates: Sovereignty control ladder, national AI strategy test, five-year cost model.
  • AI Centre of Excellence: A Practical Playbook
    Standing up an AI CoE that produces change rather than slide decks. Operating modes, staffing, funding, intake, and the sunset clause you write on day one. Templates: CoE charter template, intake form, operating mode selector.
  • AI Use Case Discovery, Readiness and Maturity: A Practical Playbook
    Finding use cases that reach production. A four-axis scoring model, a readiness assessment that tests reality, and a maturity rubric measured against what… Templates: Four-axis scoring sheet, readiness assessment, maturity rubric.
  • AI Leadership and Workforce Capability: A Practical Playbook
    Building AI capability that changes what people do. Three audiences, three curricula, assessment by artefact rather than attendance, and internal faculty… Templates: Three-audience curriculum map, executive session design, capability evidence framework.

The playbooks share one delivery philosophy with the Last-Mile AI Framework and the practice described in AI Leadership. For applying a specific standard, the interactive NIST AI RMF Playbook walks the Govern, Map, Measure, and Manage functions in depth.