01
An hour saved elsewhere is a mirage
An hour saved at the bottleneck is saved for the whole service. Speeding up a step before it only grows the queue.
Free model · Creative Commons license
Find the bottleneck before AI.
From friction to flow.
Your team already uses AI, and the waiting list has not gotten shorter. It is a focus problem. AI Mapping is a service design model to find the step that limits your whole service, and decide what AI can do there.
Free. Method guide, three-layer service blueprint, flow log, criteria and portfolio.
A service moves at the pace of its bottleneck
12Request
9Qualification
4Writing
6Review
8Sending
Fictional example: service proposals in an SME, capacity per week. The firm sends 4 proposals a week, not one more.
The paradox
AI speeds up. The service does not.
AI came in through the window rather than the front door. Someone tries a tool, saves twenty minutes on an email, mentions it at the coffee machine. Three months later, half the team uses it.
People feel more productive, and they are right. But lead times are the same. So is the queue. The clearest case comes from software development, where AI is most advanced.
- Pull requests submitted+98%
- Review time+91%
- Organizational deliveryFlat
AI-equipped development teams, 2025. Source: Faros, AI Productivity Paradox (about 10,000 developers).
The principle
A service moves at the pace of its bottleneck
Take a bottle. Pour as fast as you like: the water leaves at the pace of the bottleneck. A service works the same way. Every request goes through a series of steps, and one of them limits all the others. That bottleneck is not always inside: if your team is waiting for clients, it is demand.
02
The bottleneck is often a rule
A form to complete in full before starting. A mandatory signature. A habit that made sense in another era.
03
Waiting can be calculated
Wait = queue ÷ throughput. Sixteen requests waiting, four proposals written per week: about four weeks of waiting. Meanwhile, the client signs elsewhere.
The model
Three layers to link friction to the bottleneck
The journey map shows where it hurts. The service blueprint shows why. AI Mapping adds a third layer: the flow, which shows where work waits.
- 1
The journey
What the person lives
Their efforts, their waits, their low points. Built in workshops with the people who live the service, from realistic personas, not among managers.
Friction - 2
Internal processes
What the organization does
Staff and support, plus two lanes nobody draws: external requirements (clients, insurers, funders, government), and AI as a full actor.
Causes - 3
The flow
How work moves over time
For each step: actual work time, total lead time, queue, capacity, and the share of work that arrives usable at the next step.
The bottleneck
Start with the number
Enter the steps of your service and their capacity. The tool shows your bottleneck, the queue growing in front of it and the waiting time. Two minutes, nothing is sent.
Monday morning
Five questions for your team
- 1
If we had twice as much time at a single step of our service, which would we choose? (It is probably your bottleneck.)
- 2
What share of the calls and emails we receive are follow-ups or corrections?
- 3
How long does a client wait between their request and the moment the work really starts?
- 4
Which rule do we follow because we have always done it that way?
- 5
Do our current uses of AI free up time at the bottleneck, or elsewhere?
If your team hesitates on two answers or more, the diagnosis is worth it.
A family of free tools
Where, what, how
Three KODRA tools, at three scales. They work together.
Where to act?
AI Mapping
The whole service. Find the step that limits everything, before choosing anything.
What to build?
AI Canvas
One process. Nine boxes to design a solution starting from the real work.
ai-canvas.orgHow to delegate?
The AI In-Basket
One task. A team game to decide what a person hands to AI, and what they keep.
ai-basket.orgAll three tools are free (CC BY-SA 4.0) and published by KODRA Conseil, which trains and coaches Quebec organizations in AI adoption.
Who it is for
For any organization, because everything is a service
Businesses
Every business runs services, if only internal ones: HR, accounting, marketing, customer service. Even a product sold is first a way to meet a need.
Public and municipal services
Files that pass through many hands, rules that pile up, citizens who wait.
Nonprofits and community organizations
Employment, youth, family, health, volunteering. Demand that exceeds capacity, and a relationship to protect.
Not more AI. Not faster. In the right place.
Free. Method guide, three-layer service blueprint, flow log, criteria and portfolio.
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