# A digital baseline as your client’s teams actually live it

> The baseline before a program: the tools actually used, the workaround spreadsheets, the re-keying, seen on screen and quantified.

Source : https://tellmehow.io/en/use-cases/digital-transformation · Updated on : 2026-10-18

A transformation program rests on a baseline assessment. TellMeHow builds it from what each employee shows of their own workstation: official tools, side spreadsheets, and the manual bridges in between.

For a digital transformation firm, TellMeHow runs baseline interviews by voice while seeing the shared screen, identifies the gap between official tools and the tools people really use, and consolidates everything into a process map and a list of opportunities linked to their evidence, so the firm can prioritize the program’s workstreams.

### Where a program starts

Before proposing a roadmap, the firm has to understand how the company works today. IT provides the application inventory, while the business runs on exports, shared spreadsheets, and emails that bridge those applications. That real-world usage determines whether future tools get adopted. It rarely comes up in workshops, because it seems too ordinary to mention.

### What the official inventory misses

#### Spreadsheets that became applications

A shared file created as a stopgap has served as the tracking system for years. It carries business rules nobody documented, and any new tool will have to take them over.

#### Usage that varies from site to site

The same software is used fully in one branch and worked around in the next. A handful of workshops cannot show that spread.

#### Workstreams prioritized by gut feeling

Without volumes or frequencies, the order of workstreams follows whoever spoke loudest. The steering committee lacks the facts to make trade-offs.

### From baseline to prioritization

Collection covers the program’s entire scope without tying up your consultants in every interview.

#### Scope the usage inventory

You start from a tools audit method and add the client’s context: known applications, in-house acronyms, and the sites involved. For each population, you list the expected demonstrations, such as entering a quote or tracking a delivery.

#### Have people show their workstation

The participant shares their entire screen, which reveals installed software and open files. The AI interviewer asks to see each task described and asks about what it sees, such as where a copied figure comes from.

#### Cross-reference tools, flows, and volumes

The analysis links each process step to the tool actually used, flags re-keying and side files, and estimates volumes and durations with their range and sources.

#### Propose the order of workstreams

Opportunities appear on an impact/effort matrix based on your method’s scoring grid. You adjust, write your recommendations, and publish a navigable deliverable for the steering committee.

### Example: a 450-person building materials distributor

Illustrative example, not a client case.

Building materials distributor, 450 employees, 22 branches, ahead of a program to modernize its sales and logistics tools.

- Branch trade counters
- Purchasing
- Customer credit
- Logistics and deliveries

- Tools used day to day
- Shared files and spreadsheets
- Preparing a quote for a job site
- Delivery scheduling
- Exchanges between branches and head office

- Show me how you prepare a quote
- Show me the delivery route planning file

Delivery routes are planned in a shared spreadsheet per branch, filled in by hand from ERP orders.

Negotiated prices for large job sites are copied into each quote from an email sent by purchasing, because there is no shared price list.

Roughly 60 to 90 job-site quotes per week per branch, according to four trade counter participants.

### What the firm delivers

- A baseline of the tools actually in use, process by process, beyond the official inventory.
- A list of side spreadsheets and files, with what they contain and who maintains them.
- Estimated volumes and durations, with their range and sources.
- An impact/effort matrix of possible workstreams, as the basis for the program roadmap.

### Common questions from transformation consultants

**Why share the entire screen?**

In TellMeHow, sharing the entire screen is the default so that installed software and open files are visible, not just a single browser tab. The participant can choose a single window instead, switch screens, or stop sharing at any time.

**Is sensitive data on screen protected?**

Redaction, on by default and adjustable per engagement, masks detected data such as IBANs or card numbers before images are sent to the vision model and in the recorded video. No detection is perfect, which the welcome screen tells participants, and they can also mask an area themselves.

**Can we bring in data from the client’s own tools?**

Yes, through artifacts (exports, spreadsheets, procedures) and through a structured import in a documented exchange format. TellMeHow does not connect directly to the client’s software: data comes in as files or through an import.

**How are volumes estimated?**

Volumes come from what participants say and show, and from imported sources. TellMeHow presents them with a range and the list of sources, and a contradiction between two sources can trigger a targeted follow-up.

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- Français : https://tellmehow.io/cas-usage/transformation-digitale.md