Case Study: Cutting Report-Writing Time by 60%

A professional services firm of about 400 people had the usual picture: a handful of power users doing impressive things with AI, and everyone else watching. Report writing — a core, time-heavy deliverable — was still done the old way by most of the team.

The starting point

We began with a literacy assessment.^◦ It showed high foundations but low workflow integration: people understood the tools but had not woven them into their actual deliverables. Report drafting was the obvious first target — high volume, high time cost, consistent structure.RelatedHow that assessment works

What we built

Rather than more general training, we co-built one workflow with the teams that owned it:

• A shared prompt library tuned to the firm's report formats and tone.^◦DefinitionPrompt library A shared, maintained set of prompts tuned to the firm's formats and tone, owned by a named person.
• A review checklist so AI-drafted sections met the same bar as hand-written ones.
• A named owner in each practice group to maintain the library and coach peers.^◦FigureThe workflow lived with the practice groups, not the consultants.

The measured result

Over one quarter, average first-draft time for standard reports fell by roughly 60%.^◦ Just as important, adoption held:¹ three months after the engagement, usage had not decayed, because the workflow belonged to the teams, not to us.By the numbers≈60%drop in average first-draft time over one quarter1"Held" is the whole point — the workflow belonged to the teams, so it survived our leaving.

The lesson repeats across every engagement: adoption follows a specific, owned workflow far more reliably than it follows a good tool.

What made it stick

• We measured before and after, so the win was visible.
• We shipped a routine, not a demo.
• We handed ownership to people who stay after the consultants leave.