How Greenprint and MBH Turn AI Experiments Into Business Transformation

In this episode of the Smarter by Design podcast, I'm joined by Nicole Chavas, President and COO of Greenprint Partners, and Hillary Thompson, Principal at MBH Architects, for a candid conversation about turning AI experiments into meaningful business transformation. Both are senior leaders personally building agents and redesigning workflows, giving them a close-up view of what the technology can do and what it reveals about their firms. Building with AI keeps exposing the same underlying questions: What does good look like? Is this actually our standard, or just what we happen to do today? Is the knowledge documented clearly enough to use? And are we redesigning the work itself, or simply bolting AI onto an existing process? One of the clearest lessons is that scalable transformation often means going smaller, slower, and together. Nicole describes initially trying to move quickly and redesign entire business processes solo. What she learned was that proposal development and project management are really collections of interconnected subprocesses, and that lasting change requires a different approach: involve the people doing the work, break the system into smaller pieces, focus on the highest-impact opportunities, define what good looks like, redesign each subprocess for an AI-enabled way of working, and then train the firm on the new process. Hillary describes a parallel journey at MBH, where rapid prototyping with firm leaders through an "agent charrette" surfaced her leadership team's dreams for AI-driven business transformation, then exposed the undocumented processes, conflicting standards, duplicated effort, and poor data quality standing in the way. AI serves as an organizational mirror because when agents struggle, they often teach you something about the business. Process redesign is only part of the challenge — the other constraint is change capacity, since the technology is improving faster than their organizations can realistically absorb. They discuss experimenting with "good enough" solutions, following the energy of early adopters, sharing use cases between peers, building trust with skeptics, and giving leaders closer to day-to-day project work permission to control the pace of change. The goal is to build a trusted core of people who can experiment, interpret what is changing, and act as a shock absorber for the rest of the organization, so the firm can move fast without forcing everyone to experience the full chaos of living at the bleeding edge of the AI frontier. AI itself is not the point — it's a powerful catalyst for redesigning the business around what AEC firms have always cared about: high-quality work teams are proud of, profitably run projects, happy clients, and engaged employees. == Learn More == 🚀 Synthesis, the Intranet, LMS, and AI Search Solution for AEC: https://www.knowledge-architecture.com/ 📬 Subscribe to the "Smarter by Design" newsletter: https://www.knowledge-architecture.co... 🔔 Subscribe to our channel:    / @‌knowledgearchitecture   == Episode Resources == Books Tharp, Twyla, with Mark Reiter. The Creative Habit: Learn It and Use It for Life. Simon & Schuster, 2003. KA Connect Talks Leonard, Dorothy. "Deep Smarts and Core Capabilities." KA Connect 2017. https://www.knowledge-architecture.co... Milton, Nick. "Lessons Learned from Lessons Learned." KA Connect 2018. https://www.knowledge-architecture.co... == Credits == Host: Christopher Parsons Executive Producers: Denise Parsons, Christopher Parsons Editor: Coe Hoeksema Theme Song: “We Took the BART” — Written and Performed by The Parents == Chapters == 00:00 Episode Introduction 03:40 Guest Introductions: Hillary Thompson and Nicole Chavas 07:12 From Human Knowledge Management System to Real Systems 09:41 Picking Agent Use Cases: Frequency x Pain 11:30 The Light Bulb Moment: From Chatbot Helper to Agent Infrastructure 15:23 Refining the Formula: Repeatability and the Right-Sized Agent 20:38 The Human Side of Process Redesign 24:44 Skeptics, Fences, and Guardrails for AI Adoption 30:52 Uneven AI Adoption Across Roles: Engineers and Creatives 36:33 Embrace Disruption but Choose Changes Wisely to Maintain Trust 41:27 Design Charrette: AI As An Organizational Mirror 49:58 The L&D Venn Diagram: Merging Just-in-Time Learning with Training 53:01 Rebuilding Training Standards from Scratch 55:06 Project Management: Tackling Subprocesses First 56:51 Good Process Before Good Agents 01:02:11 Robot Jim and Critical Knowledge Transfer 2.0 01:07:42 Lessons Learned Reborn 01:10:50 Nicole's Roadmap: Metrics, Practices, and Quality of Life 01:15:57 Guardrails Create Freedom 01:19:28 Idea Trackers and the Gas-and-Brake Team Structure 01:24:33 Synthesis MCP Server and Commons Command Center 01:29:10 Advice for AEC Leaders: Don't Outsource Your Understanding