Related question
Should AI tell my people what to do, or give me visibility into what they are doing?
Short answer
Start with visibility. On one fleet engagement we were asked to improve route efficiency, and the obvious answer looked like a dispatch system that told drivers where to go. The owner did not want route control. He needed to see what was happening. Measurement changed the operation more than control would have.
We thought we were building a dispatch system. We were not.
The original logic was sound on paper. Improve route efficiency, so build something that tells drivers where to go, optimizes their routes, and controls execution. Then we learned how the business actually operated. The drivers self-route. The owner was not looking for control. He needed to see what was happening.
So we pivoted. Instead of dispatching drivers, we started measuring performance. Every completed route compared against an optimized version of the exact same stops. Not to control. To understand.
The results were immediately actionable in a way a dispatch system would not have been. One driver came within one percent of the optimal route on a four-stop day, which tells you he needs nothing from you. Another ran about 17 percent over optimal, which is a coaching conversation rather than a crisis. A third ran two and a half times the optimal mileage, which is a clear signal worth investigating.
The client's response: "This is beautiful. I can see a light at the end of the tunnel."
The pivot did not produce a dispatch system. It produced operational visibility. He is not being told how to run his team. He is being given information he never had, in a format that matches how he already works. Control can come later, once the measurement has earned trust.