Checking team readiness (activity)

60 minutes | Team planning activity | Moderate effort

Use this activity to work through how ready your team is to use AI safely and confidently. It helps you identify gaps in skills, communication, oversight and team culture, then agree practical next steps together.

This activity supports our guidance on how to keep your team at the centre. Use it to turn readiness checks into clear actions your team can build on over time. 

Checking team readiness helps turn interest in AI into safe, coordinated action. It gives teams a shared view of skills, expectations, and ways of working before AI use expands.

This makes it easier to spot gaps early and agree practical next steps that people can support.

Use this activity when your team is starting to use AI tools or expanding how they use AI.

This works best with:

• team leads
• managers
• AI champions
• people responsible for team processes or support.

It helps your team think through the people, skills, communication, oversight and culture needed to use AI safely and confidently.

• have the readiness planning canvas open or printed
• gather any existing guidance, policies or training information that may help the discussion
• ask staff to come ready to talk about current tools, tasks and team habits.

Use the canvas together as a team. Work through each section in order and agree 

• what needs attention now 
• what is already working
• what needs follow-up.

Time: 10 minutes

Start by identifying where people need the most support.

Discuss:

• which roles need more AI training
• what skills gaps already exist
• where confidence is low
• which tasks are changing first.

Capture the biggest training priorities, leveraging our guidance on understanding your team’s learning needs

Time: 10 minutes

Next, focus on how your team will build capability.

Think about:

• what staff need to learn first
• which learning formats work best
• where peer learning may help
• what safe practice opportunities staff need.

Agree how capability building will happen.

Time: 10 minutes

Focus on accountability and decision-making by discussing:

• where staff need to review AI outputs
• who owns final decisions
• which tasks need stronger oversight
• where escalation pathways are unclear.

Capture where human checks must stay in place and where you may need to create an AI use policy.

Time: 10 minutes

Review how your team stays informed.

Discuss:

• how you’ll share updates
• what staff need to know now
• where expectations feel unclear
• which guidance needs to be easier to find.

Agree how communication will stay regular and how to keep your team at the centre.

Time: 10 minutes

Focus on feedback and safe escalation.

Using our guidance on giving your team a voice, consider:

• how people raise ideas or concerns
• where feedback currently gets lost
• whether people feel safe to speak up
• how issues are followed through.

Capture ways to make feedback easier and more visible.

Time: 10 minutes

Finish by looking at habits and behaviours.

Talk about:

• whether staff feel safe to experiment
• how lessons are shared
• where fear or uncertainty is slowing progress
• what good AI habits look like for the team.

Agree what cultural habits you want to strengthen. Learn more about how you can address uncertainty.

As you wrap up the session, recap each of the key discussion points.

Work with your team to agree:

• what 2 to 3 immediate actions are
• who owns each one
• what needs leadership support
• when you will revisit the canvas.

Come back to the canvas whenever tools, roles or ways of working change.