Focus AI Playbooks#
AI is transforming how we develop software like no other tool in our lifetime. In order to remain expert practitioners of our craft, we must become experts in the use of AI.
This site is a shared reference for how we use AI at Focus Consulting: the workflows that work, the tools we rely on, and the practices we’ve learned along the way. Start here when you’re picking up a new AI tool, looking for a repeatable way to tackle a task, or want to see how others on the team are getting results.
This is a living document. If you’ve found a workflow that consistently produces good outcomes, or a trick that makes a tool click, add it. The more people contribute, the more useful this becomes for everyone.
Playbooks#
Repeatable workflows for getting consistent, high-quality outcomes from AI: writing, research, thinking, review, and more.
- AI Driven Writing: Go from thesis to outline to filled content, keeping the human in control of the thinking at every stage.
- Audience Translation: Adapt a single document for different audiences without rewriting from scratch each time.
- Automated Journaling
- Decision Documentation
- Generating Speaker Notes
- Generating Variations: Explore the space of possibilities by producing multiple variations before you commit to a direction.
- Knowledge Digest
- Onboarding Accelerator: Use AI to rapidly build a mental model of a new domain, team, or role by processing existing documents and decisions.
- Research Assistant: Targeted research synthesis for a specific purpose, turning raw sources into actionable preparation.
- Rubber Duck with Memory: Think out loud with an AI that asks good questions and writes everything down.
- Rubric Driven Assessment: Codify your thinking into a concrete rubric, then let AI apply it consistently as your work evolves.
- Secondary AI Review: Use a fresh AI session to catch the patterns and tics that accumulate when AI helps you write.
- SOP / Process Documentation
Tools & Utilities#
Reference guides for the AI tools and utilities we use day-to-day.
- Claude Team Account: Your team’s shared Claude account. Log in with SSO and request a seat.
- Claude Desktop: The main interface for day-to-day AI work: writing, research, brainstorming, and document review.
- Claude for Chrome: A browser extension that lets Claude see and interact with the page you’re looking at.
- Claude Co-working: Hand off well-defined tasks and let Claude work in the background while you focus on other things.
- Claude Projects: Shared workspaces with persistent context for team collaboration.
- Claude Code: A command-line tool for AI-assisted development.
- Claude + Google Drive: Connect Claude to your Google Drive so it can read and work with your documents, spreadsheets, and files directly.
- MCP Server: SQL Database: Connect Claude to a SQL database so it can query data directly during conversations.
Best Practices#
Standards and conventions for doing good work and delivering projects.