# Every named pattern in the framework, in one place. Source: https://thewiremethod.com/glossary Site: The WIRE Method Tagline: AI that works inside the business. Founder: Richard Batt Contact: hello@thewiremethod.com This Markdown companion is generated from the prerendered page for AI crawlers. Reference # Every named pattern in the framework, in one place. The WIRE Method names the patterns it works with so practitioners can recognise them on a client call without explaining the whole framework first. The glossary below is the public reference. Each entry is short on purpose. The full implementation detail sits inside the certification. ## The four steps **Audit** The W in WIRE.A structured operations audit that finds the work waiting to be automated. Not a survey, not a workshop, a line-by-line account of where the hours go. Outputs a candidate list with a real cost on each one.**Identify** The I in WIRE.A scoring step that picks the right first build out of the candidates. The Fastest Win rule sits here. Outputs one chosen process, fully documented, ready to build.**Run** The R in WIRE.The build cadence. Smallest working version, deployed in days not quarters, reviewed daily for the first two weeks. Outputs a running automation against a measured baseline.**Embed** The E in WIRE.The handover protocol. Handover document, named owner, monthly review, governance light. Outputs a build that survives the builder. ## Diagnostic patterns **The Monday Morning Test** The 15-minute audit diagnostic.Describe your Monday morning out loud. If what you hear sounds like a series of manual steps that follow a predictable pattern, there is an automation waiting to be built. The first thing every WIRE engagement runs.**The Time Tax** The cost of a manual process.A calculation method that gives every recurring manual process a real annual cost. Hours times rate times frequency, plus the opportunity cost of the human hours not freed. Used to rank candidates in Step Two.**The 89 Percent Illusion** The adoption gap.Eighty-nine percent of small businesses say they use AI. The figure is real. The interpretation is wrong. Most of those eighty-nine percent are running tool exploration, not implementation. The difference is the gap WIRE closes.**The Whiteboard Problem** The undocumented process.When the process lives on a whiteboard or in one person's head, the automation built on top of it inherits the same risk. The most common failure mode in the audit step. ## Selection patterns **The Fastest Win** The first-build selection rule.Pick the candidate process that is fastest to ship, not the one with the largest theoretical saving. The fastest win delivers compounding returns: it builds the team's confidence, it produces real data, and it generates the second candidate.**The Tool Trap** Picking the tool before the process.Choosing a tool before the process is documented. The trap is invisible until the build starts and the tool starts dictating the workflow instead of the other way around.**The 89 Percent Readiness Gap** The gap between AI use and AI implementation.Three structural readiness gaps every business has: undocumented process, inconsistent data, no named owner. Each is fixable, none requires technical skill, all three need to close before a build is worth starting. ## Build patterns **The Minimum Viable Automation** The first-build cadence.The smallest version of the automation that proves the outcome. Ships in days. Imperfect by design. The MVA is the version reviewed daily for the first two weeks; the polished version comes later.**The Velocity Gap** The competitive cost of slow adoption.The gap between businesses moving on AI now and those waiting. Real, measured in lost contracts and excess cost in client engagements where the slower team has been observed.**The Silent Drift** AI usage without implementation.Tools rolled out, prompts written, gains measured at fifteen to twenty percent when the available number was two to three times. The drift from tool usage to real implementation, when the tool was treated as the solution. ## Embed and governance patterns **The Bus Test** The handover acceptance test.If the builder left the project tomorrow, could the business keep the build running. The single question that decides whether the build is finished. Failed Bus Tests come back as Step Four work.**The Governance Layer** Light governance scaled for small business.Named owner, monthly review, written behaviour. Light enough that a small business will actually run it. Heavy enough to catch the Four Breaks before they cost.**The Four Breaks** The four failure modes of a running automation.Trigger break, data drift, process drift, volume drift. The four ways a working automation eventually fails. The monitoring pattern catches each one before it becomes an outage.**The Freed Hours Flywheel** The compounding pattern after a good embed.Hours freed by the first automation flow back into the second. The second build is better than the first because the team has data, confidence and a documented standard. Compounds visibly by month four. ## Failure patterns **The Wrong Autopsy** Why AI projects are blamed wrongly.When an AI project fails, the technology gets blamed because it is the visible variable. In more than 120 deployments, the technology has never been the primary cause of failure. The Wrong Autopsy is the diagnostic mistake that sends the next project down the same path.**The Electrician, Not the Professor** The brand of the practitioner who runs the method.The professor model produces knowledge: strategy decks, frameworks, options. The electrician model produces working infrastructure: a finished build, a measurable outcome. Most AI consulting markets the professor; the work most businesses need is the electrician.**The Talent Redirect** What a good embed does to a team.Nobody fired. Hours freed by the first build are redirected into higher-value work. The pattern that makes the WIRE Method politically safe inside an organisation, because the upside lands on the same people who run the build.