Virtual Alignment Session – Facilitator Guide
Mission & Intent
The purpose of the Pillar 1 Virtual Alignment Sessions is not discovery at scale and not use-case ideation. Discovery is deliberately handled by Superintelligent. These sessions exist to:
- Establish executive-level framing and guardrails for Orion AI Outcomes
- Align on why the organization is engaging, not what will be built
- Surface leadership assumptions that will later be tested against evidence
- Ensure Orion does not optimize for problems that do not matter strategically
These sessions are designed to be low-disruption, high-leverage, protecting both client time and Orion delivery economics.
Target Personas (Strictly Limited)
1. CIO (Accountable for Safe AI Adoption)
The CIO is positioned as the executive accountable for AI adoption as an operating reality, not as a technology experiment. In this forum, the CIO is not asked to design architectures, controls, or tooling. Their role is to articulate:
- Risk tolerance and non-negotiables
- Prior experiences with shadow IT / shadow AI
- Constraints that would invalidate certain classes of outcomes
2. CEO or Business Sponsor (Optional but Recommended)
When present, this role anchors the discussion in existential relevance rather than efficiency alone. Their contribution is directional, not tactical.
3. Select Functional or Regional Leaders (Very Small Set)
Only leaders who own meaningful outcomes and budgets. This is not a representative sample — it is a signal sample.
Explicitly excluded: data, security, legal, finance, architecture, vendors.
What Is Discussed (And What Is Not)
In Scope
- Strategic anxieties (e.g., relevance, competitiveness, trust)
- Where leadership believes value is created or lost today
- Where informal AI usage is suspected or already visible
- What would constitute success or failure at a business level
Out of Scope
- Tool selection
- Data platforms
- Model choices
- Security controls
- Cost modeling
- Specific agent designs
This boundary is critical. Introducing constraints before value is defined reliably stalls progress.
Two-Hour Session Agenda (Standard)
0–15 min | Framing the Engagement
- Orion reiterates Orion AI Outcomes philosophy
- Clarifies roles, scope, and downstream phases
- Establishes adoption as the north-star metric
15–45 min | Leadership Perspective Capture
- Where do leaders believe friction exists?
- Where does judgment feel overused or misapplied?
- Where does unmanaged AI worry them most?
45–75 min | Guardrails & Non-Negotiables
- What cannot be automated?
- What failures would be unacceptable?
- What risk thresholds must be respected?
75–100 min | Hypotheses Formation
- Capture leadership hypotheses about value and risk
- These are explicitly labeled as hypotheses, not facts
100–120 min | Superintelligent Setup & Next Steps
- Explain how hypotheses will be tested at scale
- Confirm survey scope and populations
- Align on communications to the broader organization
Why More Than One Virtual Session May Be Required
In some organizations, a single session is insufficient due to:
- Multiple business lines with distinct economics
- Regional autonomy
- Separation between corporate and field leadership
In these cases, Orion runs multiple parallel sessions, each time-boxed and scoped, to avoid forcing false consensus too early.
Output Artifacts Generated
Each Virtual Alignment Session produces tangible collateral:
- Executive Guardrails Brief — Documenting strategic intent, risk tolerance, and non-negotiables
- Leadership Hypotheses Register — Explicit list of assumptions to be validated or disproven by Superintelligent
- Superintelligent Deployment Plan — Defined populations, objectives, and messaging
These artifacts flow directly into the Superintelligent Survey phase and are referenced again during the in-person decision workshop.