Build Better Systems
Design how work gets done in the age of AI
AI isn't just a technology question. It's an organizational design question.
Adding AI to existing workflows is relatively easy. The bigger opportunity is to rethink the workflows themselves.
How should people, processes, systems, automation and AI work together?
From adding AI to redesigning work
Using AI is not the same as redesigning work
- 01
Build with AI
Use AI to help create workflows, automations and solutions.
- 02
Add AI to work
Add AI to existing workflows to summarize, classify, generate, analyze or recommend.
- 03
Redesign work with AI
Rethink how the work should get done in the first place.
“If we designed this organization today, knowing what AI can do, would we organize the work in the same way?”
The Glass Ball
Use the Glass Ball
Envision your Target Operating Model.
Looking ahead is not about predicting the future. Nobody knows exactly how AI will develop, or what organizations will look like several years from now.
What you can do is make explicit assumptions based on what you know today, and use those assumptions to design how you believe work should get done.
“Don't predict the future. Design towards it.”
Your Target Operating Model is a hypothesis, not a prediction.
Questions to ask
- What work should people do?
- What can AI assist with?
- What can be automated?
- Where could agents act autonomously?
- Which decisions require human judgment?
- What information needs to be available?
- Which systems should support the work?
The Build Better Systems loop
From hypothesis to evidence — and back
Target = hypothesisCurrent = evidenceClose the gap.
Build Better Systems
Turn organizational design into an operating system
Technology should follow the design of the work, not dictate it. Start with people and work, then decide how the tools support them.
People
Who does what?
Work
How should work flow?
ClickUp
How is work organized and made visible?
Make
How do systems and workflows connect and orchestrate?
AI
Where can intelligence change how the work gets done?
“Technology follows design — not the other way around.”
ClickUp + Make + AI
How the technologies fit together
ClickUp organizes the work.
A place to organize work, responsibilities, workflows, projects, records, knowledge and progress.
Make orchestrates the work.
Connects systems and orchestrates how information and actions move across the organization.
AI changes how the work gets done.
Assists people, participates within workflows and increasingly performs actions more autonomously.
The opportunity isn't in any one of these technologies. It's in designing how they work together.
The Glass Box
Build a Glass Box
Understand your Current Operating Model.
As workflows become more automated and agentic, trust and transparency become more important.
In a black box you only see what goes in and what comes out. In a Glass Box you can see what happens inside your systems — and so understand how work is actually getting done.
“Trust requires transparency.”
The Glass Box idea, and its emphasis on trust and transparency, was inspired by Make's vision presented at Make Waves in Prague in 2026.
- What happened?
- Why did it happen?
- Which information was used?
- What did AI decide or recommend?
- Which systems were changed?
- Where did a human intervene?
Close the gap
Your operating model is never finished
Your Target Operating Model is a hypothesis.
Your Current Operating Model provides the evidence.
Observe what happens. Learn from it. Adjust the design. Build again.
“Envision. Build. Understand. Learn. Repeat.”
Where do you start?
Start with the work
You don't need a large AI transformation programme to get started. Start with one important workflow.
How should work get done in your organization?
In a Discovery Call, we'll explore how work operates today, where you want to go and where better systems, automation and AI could make a meaningful difference.