0001 — Operating Council as the prioritization body

Date: 2026-04-14 Status: accepted (Claire confirmed in Apr 14 Slack: "I'm leaning toward a subset of our Leadership Team which we have recently formed named the Operating Council.")

Context

The initial COE proposal positioned the AI Council as the body that would prioritize cohort work — receiving readouts, making cross-functional decisions, and coordinating the AI landscape at Balsam.

In the April 14 feedback from Claire, she flagged that the AI Council is not the right body for this role. Her framing: the AI Council is more of an enablement and standards body — tooling, policy, training programs, shared infrastructure. It's not close enough to the business to make priority calls on which workflow bets get funded.

Balsam recently formed a new group, the Operating Council — a subset of the Leadership Team. That group is closer to the business and better positioned to prioritize COE work. Claire explicitly proposed moving prioritization there, with C-suite brought in as needed.

Decision

The Operating Council is the prioritization body for the COE. It:

  • Picks the next cohort from the backlog (monthly).
  • Approves cohort scope and roster.
  • Funds follow-on work (including external build partner engagements).
  • Reviews monthly readouts from active cohorts.

The AI Council retains its role as the enablement and standards body. It:

  • Sets tooling recommendations across Balsam (AI platforms, licensing).
  • Owns policy and governance for AI use company-wide.
  • Owns training programs.
  • Receives monthly COE readouts and uses them to inform standards.

A named liaison on the AI Council attends the monthly COE readout so the two bodies stay connected.

Reasoning

Why the Operating Council is the right body:

  • Closer to the business. Priority calls need business context.
  • Already meeting regularly and structured for decisions.
  • Avoids asking the AI Council to be two things at once (standards body + priority body).
  • Claire and France are connected into the Operating Council; the reporting path is natural.

Why not keep the AI Council in this role:

  • Standards and prioritization are different skills. Conflating them weakens both.
  • The AI Council is not constituted for priority calls on workflow bets.
  • Claire's own signal: the current AI Council isn't ready to own this.

Why a liaison rather than merging the bodies:

  • Keeps the AI Council focused on its core mandate.
  • Ensures cohort work shapes standards without the Operating Council being on the hook for standards.
  • A single person carrying context between bodies is lighter-weight than joint meetings.

Consequences

  • The founding brief updates: Operating Council replaces AI Council throughout the prioritization sections.
  • The governance doc reflects the two-body model.
  • Monthly COE readouts go to the Operating Council primarily, with a copy/liaison path to the AI Council.
  • Intake decisions flow: COE triage → Operating Council priority → cohort formed.
  • If the AI Council wants to propose a cohort, they submit via intake like anyone else.

Open items

  • Name the AI Council liaison for monthly COE readouts.
  • Confirm Operating Council's meeting cadence aligns with monthly cohort decision rhythm.