Yesterday's session was about something most AI rollouts skip: mapping your workflow before you touch a tool. Small group, which meant a real conversation instead of a presentation.
Watch the full session on YouTube. A transcript is available on the video page.
Why this matters
Most AI rollouts in public health departments go the same way. Someone buys a tool, drops it on a team, and asks them to do more. Nothing about the actual work changes. The team gets handed a chatbot and a vague mandate to "use AI," and a few months in, no one can explain what it's doing for them.
Last month the group named this: "AI brain fry." Brain rot is the junk flooding the internet. Brain fry is what happens to your people. More tabs, more context-switching, more cognitive load, and somehow less clarity than before. The structure of the work didn't change. You just added a tool on top.
"Most teams reach for a tool before they name the problem."
Process mapping is how you get out of that loop. When you can see the workflow on a wall — the actual steps, the handoffs, the decision points, the place where everyone gets stuck — you can finally answer the question that matters: where does AI earn its keep, and where is it just adding noise? You stop asking AI to help with everything and start placing it deliberately.
(RAND's 2024 study put a number on this: misunderstanding the problem is the top reason AI projects fail. We've seen it firsthand more than enough times to believe them.)
The MAP framework
The session walked through a three-step framework:
- M — Map your workflow. Put your current process on paper (or a whiteboard). Define your start point and end point. Identify decision points and handoffs.
- A — Add the context. Once your process is visible, you can identify where AI actually fits — and more importantly, where it doesn't.
- P — Prompt and polish. Only now do you write your prompts. Prompts that start with real context work. Ones that don't, usually don't.
The session focused mostly on the M, including a live walkthrough of a public health example and a classic: mapping out how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. (Yes, really. And yes, it works as an icebreaker.)
If you want to practice this, F&T Labs partnered with NNPHI on a free on-demand training: Process Mapping for Public Health. It covers how to map a process from scratch and how to run a session with your team.
Where PH360 fits in this
Process mapping answers the question most teams skip: what are we actually doing right now? Once you can see the workflow, where AI fits usually gets obvious. So does where it doesn't belong.
That's the work PH360 is built for. Public health has always MacGyvered solutions from tools built for someone else. PH360 is purpose-built for local public health departments, with the context already loaded. Your team isn't spending the first month explaining what a health department does. PH360 drafts. You sign your name on it.
If your department is in that conversation right now, come talk to us. Get in touch →
AI for Public Health Webinar — Wednesday, June 3
A live walkthrough of how AI is actually working inside public health departments. Register here →
The AI Community of Practice meets monthly. It's a free, open conversation for people working in or adjacent to governmental public health who are thinking seriously about AI. Learn more and join the community →
