Write Your Team's AI Rules in an Afternoon · Lesson 6 of 7

Roll it out and review it every 90 days

20 minutes. A 15-minute meeting, a signature, and a date on the calendar.

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Rules nobody hears about don't exist. Rules people hear about once, in a long email, barely exist. The rollout below takes one short meeting and a little follow-up, and it works for a team of five or fifty.

Before the meeting: pick an owner

One person looks after the rules. Call them your AI champion: the person on your team who's most comfortable with AI and is willing to answer questions. It doesn't have to be the owner, and it shouldn't be someone who's already swamped.

The champion:

  • Answers "is this OK?" questions
  • Approves new tools (or brings them to the owner)
  • Keeps the signed copies
  • Runs the 90-day review

Name a backup for when the champion is out.

The 15-minute team meeting

Do it in person or on a call. Don't skip the live part. Questions come up in a room that never come up in an email.

Minutes 0 to 2: Why we're doing this. Say again that nobody is in trouble for anything so far. Say what the business gets: the right tools, paid for, and rules that protect everyone.

Minutes 2 to 5: What we found. Share the survey results in general terms. "Most of us use ChatGPT. About half on personal accounts. Mostly emails and social posts." No names.

Minutes 5 to 11: The page. Walk through the one-page policy, one section at a time. Spend the most time on three lines:

  • Work goes in the company account, starting [date].
  • The never-paste list (read it out).
  • A person checks anything that goes out, and the call-back rule.

Minutes 11 to 14: Questions. Write down any you can't answer. Promise an answer by a date.

Minute 14 to 15: Sign. Hand out the page, or send it for a signature. Everyone signs, including the owner.

Make it easy to follow
  • Help people switch accounts. Set up company accounts before the meeting, or right after, together. Doing it in the room catches people signing in with the wrong account.
  • Let the settings do some of the work. Business plans give the admin controls over who's in the workspace and which features and connectors staff can use. In Microsoft 365, an admin can also limit signing in with personal Microsoft accounts. Where a setting can enforce a rule, use it. Your IT partner can help.
  • Ask people to move what they need. Give people until the switch-over date to copy any useful prompts or work out of personal accounts, and then stop using those accounts for work.
Where the rules live

Put the policy in three places:

  • Where people work: pinned in the team chat, or saved in the shared drive with an obvious name like "AI Rules."
  • Where new people start: add it to your new-hire checklist, so it's signed on day one.
  • On paper: a printed copy by the coffee maker or in the break room. It sounds old-fashioned. It works.

Keep the signed copies in one folder. The champion owns that folder.

The 90-day review

These products change every few weeks. Your policy needs a short checkup four times a year. Put it on the calendar now.

At each review, the champion spends 30 minutes on five questions:

  • Tools: Is anyone using something not on the list? Should anything be added or dropped?
  • Accounts: Is everyone on a company account? Anyone left the business whose access should be removed?
  • Data: Did anything on the never-paste list get pasted? Does the list need a new item?
  • Mistakes: Did anything AI-made go out wrong? What would have caught it?
  • Changes: Did a vendor change a plan, price or setting that affects the rules? Did the team start using agents or note-takers?

Update the page, change the date, and ask people to re-sign only if a rule changed. Then set the next review.

Exercise: plan your rollout (15 minutes)
  • Open the Staff AI Policy template. At the top, write the champion, the backup and the effective date.
  • Fill in section 9, Where these rules live.
  • Put the 15-minute meeting on the calendar for this week or next. Invite everyone.
  • Put the first 90-day review on the champion's calendar, with the five questions in the invite.
  • Write the next review date on the policy.
Do this now

Send the meeting invite. Fifteen minutes, everyone, with "AI rules" in the title.

Check it worked
  • The champion and backup are named and have agreed.
  • The meeting is on the calendar.
  • The first 90-day review is on the champion's calendar.
  • You know the three places the policy will live.

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→ Next: Capstone: your signed one-page policy

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