Checking the work · for operations and project managers
Checking AI output in operations and project management
AI output in operations work looks orderly, and people tend to believe orderly documents. The damaging errors are small and specific. A due date shifts by a week. An action item loses its owner. A spreadsheet total includes a row it should not. A meeting summary records a proposal as a decision.
Checking the work means comparing the output against its source, line by line where it matters. You confirm every date, owner, and figure. You confirm that decisions in the summary were made in the meeting. And you look for what the output dropped.
Where it comes up
A meeting summary before it goes out
Read the summary against the notes or transcript. Confirm each decision was agreed, each owner accepted the task, and each date was stated. Remove anything the model inferred.
Figures from a spreadsheet analysis
Recalculate two or three totals yourself in the spreadsheet. Check that the model used the right date range and excluded canceled or duplicate rows.
A vendor comparison table
Open each proposal and confirm the price, term, and notice period for every vendor. Watch for figures quoted on different bases, such as monthly against annual or per site against total.
What it looks like at each band
E1 · Foundational
Reads the output for sense and formatting and catches obvious errors. Tends to accept dates and figures that look reasonable. May send a summary without comparing it to the notes.
E2 · Proficient
Checks dates, owners, and figures against the source before sharing. Recalculates key totals. Removes or marks anything that cannot be confirmed.
E3 · Distinguished
Checks in proportion to the stakes: a team reminder gets a read, a budget figure gets recalculated. Looks for what is missing, such as a dropped dependency or an unrecorded objection. Asks the model which items it was least certain about and checks those first.
E4 · Exceptional
Sets the review rules for the team, such as which documents another person reads and which figures get recalculated. Can name the cause of an error, such as a misread column or a wrong date range. Catches subtle errors others miss, such as a holiday ignored in a schedule.
Common mistakes
Treating a summary as a record
A summary is the model’s reading of the meeting. If people will act on it, compare it to the notes or ask attendees to confirm before it becomes the record.
Trusting a total you did not recalculate
Models can misread columns, skip rows, or add the wrong range. Recalculate the figures that someone will make a decision on.
Checking the format and not the content
A clean table with consistent headings can still hold the wrong numbers. Check the values before you adjust the layout.
A worked example
Sending a summary of a cross-team planning meeting to twelve attendees.
Paste the AI summary into an email, fix the formatting, and send it. The summary says the data migration will finish on April 30 and that the finance team owns the cutover checklist.
Nobody confirmed either point. If April 30 was only a target, or finance never agreed to own the checklist, twelve people now hold a wrong record.
Before sending, list every date, owner, and decision in the summary. Compare each one with the meeting notes. The notes show April 30 was proposed, not agreed, so mark it as a target pending confirmation. Finance did not accept the checklist, so move it to open questions. Then send, and ask attendees to reply with any corrections by Friday.
The manager checks the items people will act on and corrects the two that the model overstated. The summary that goes out matches the meeting, and attendees have a clear way to correct it.
The full study guide for this skill, for every role, is Checking the work. The other five skills for operations and project managers are on the AI skills for operations and project managers page. A one-page summary is in the AI fact-checking checklist.
See where you stand
The free check grades checking the work and the other five skills in about fifteen minutes. Nobody sees the grade but you.
Then build the skills and prove it. The three steps for operations and project managers list the courses and templates that fit the work.