WISER Method Master Playbook: Build What Matters with AI First Principles

Your AI Isn't Broken. Your Playbook Is.

For leaders who greenlight AI. For practitioners who make it work.

AI project failures don't come from bad models. They come from old habits. Lock AI down like software and you kill its value. Let it roam and it drifts. Mistakes ship and scale.

The WISER Method is the field manual for teams operationalizing AI. Written by Robb Wilson and Anthony Franco, two practitioners with twenty years of shared experience building critical systems for over half the Fortune 100, this book delivers a systematic approach to implementation built on AI First Principles, an open-source framework of twelve constraints governing how AI systems succeed and fail.

What You Get:

• A Proven Framework for thinking about AI as a strategic capability, not a technology project
• A Real-World Narrative following one company from discovery through deployment
• 26 Plays with objectives, inputs, steps, success criteria, adaptations, and pitfalls
• 20+ Downloadable Templates ready to use on day one
• Advanced Frameworks for risk assessment, autonomy calibration, measurement, and knowing when to rebuild

For Leaders: Parts I, II, and III give you roughly 80 pages of strategic foundation. Enough to sponsor well, fund wisely, and recognize when things go wrong.

For Practitioners: The entire book is your workbook. Part IV is where you'll spend most of your time in the field.

The book is structured using cognitive layering. Each chapter builds on the last. By the time you reach the method, you have the mental models to use it. By the time you reach the case study, you recognize the patterns. By the time you finish, you won't just know what to do. You'll know why it works.

WISER stands for Witness, Interrogate, Solve, Expand, Refine. Five canons. One method. Built by people who ship.

Published by First Strategy in association with UX MAG.