Hand holding lightbulb that represents ideation

In an AI World, the Hard Problem Isn’t Ideas...It’s Deciding What’s Worth Working On

Michael Fruhling
Author Profile
Problem Solving
COE Summit 2026

As we all know, most organizations are not short on ideas. They already have long lists of improvement opportunities, initiatives, and problems that “should be fixed.” AI is only accelerating this. It can generate tons of appealing sounding options instantly and make almost any issue appear reasonable and urgent.

But while ideas are now cheap, action is not.
 
Every decision to work on something carries real costs: budget, time, people, and organizational attention. Those resources are limited. Choosing one thing to work on always means choosing not to work on something else.
 
That tradeoff exists whether we acknowledge it or not.
 

The Cost of Working on the Wrong Problems

Organizations rarely fail because they lack solutions.They are more likely to suffer by investing effort in problems that never deserved that attention. 
 
Problems that feel frustrating but don’t really change behaviors, or appear important but are already handled well enough through workarounds
 
In many cases, people adapt to problem situations. They adjust how they work, lower their expectations, or find ways around their issue. When that happens, further investment may deliver little real value.
 
In those instances, the risk is more about doing something that may be unnecessary than doing nothing. 
 

Most Improvement Work Is Incremental...and That’s Where Judgment Matters Most

Much of the progress organizations make is incremental. This work is how organizations improve performance over time. It is also where misallocated effort consumes enormous resources.
 

A Discipline That Organizations Need

Most organizations don't lack creativity. Rather, they struggle with a disciplined way to decide which problems are worth paying attention to, and which ones are adequately handled and should be left alone.
 
People and teams already have a bias for action. They need to have a greater bias for being selective about what they choose to act on. 
 
In an AI-accelerated world, the ability to choose the right work, and avoid the wrong work, is going to become a core operational skill. Most of us would benefit from this skill if we are not already adept at it. 
 

Interested in diving deeper into innovation in an AI world? Michael Fruhling will lead a limited-capacity workshop on Tuesday, April 7 at the COE Summit 2026. Drawing from decades of innovation work and current MBA/Executive Education teaching, Michael will explore how customer journey mapping reveals key breakdowns, root causes, and human-behavior realities that AI alone cannot see. Attendees will leave with a practical, repeatable framework for using the customer journey to identify, define, and validate the right customer problems, before engaging AI or proposing solutions. They will understand how to combine human insight, journey-based diagnostics, and AI-supported ideation to improve accuracy, speed, and adoption. 

The Ohio State University Center for Operational Excellence Summit, now in its 13th year, is a three-day event dedicated to connecting diverse industries to the latest best practices in leadership and continuous improvement. This year’s Summit will explore how organizations are rewiring excellence with emerging tech, bold strategies, and future-ready thinking. Top authors, researchers, and lean practitioners will share insights on operationalizing AI, innovating processes, and navigating disruption with clarity and confidence.

COE Summit public registration launched February 1. Early bird pricing is available through March 1!

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COE Summit 2026: Excellence Rewired