The companion volume - where governance becomes operational.
The first volume - The Executive's Guide to AI Governance - gives executive teams the framework. This volume gives them the operating manual.
Every AI system in your business is somewhere on a journey. Some are still being conceived. Some are running in production, generating value or accumulating problems. Some are quietly degrading without anyone noticing. Some are well past their useful life. The lifecycle gives you a way to know where each one is - and what governance applies at each point.
AI policy without lifecycle discipline is a document. AI lifecycle discipline without policy is improvisation. You need both.
What's inside.
- The lifecycle in overview - the seven stages of governing an AI system, and three principles that run through every one of them.
- Stage 1: Concept & Use Case Definition - where AI success is won, or lost.
- Stage 2: Design & Development - where future risk is locked in.
- Stage 3: Validation & Testing - where confidence and trust are proven, not assumed.
- Stage 4: Deployment - from ready to real, safely.
- Stage 5: Operation & Monitoring - where value is delivered and protected, every day.
- Stage 6: Maintenance & Improvement - where AI evolves, or quietly degrades.
- Stage 7: Decommissioning - the most overlooked stage in any AI estate.
Each stage is treated as a chapter in itself, with what ISO/IEC 42001 requires, what good looks like, where organisations go wrong, and the questions to ask your organisation. Roughly 28 pages, A4 format.
Best read alongside the companion volume - The Executive's Guide to AI Governance - which lays out the broader framework. Both are free.