Tools
Tools support the effective use of CDM patterns in AI-assisted product and service design, as well as in AI-enabled processes. They enable teams to apply best practices with consistency and efficiency.
With insights from
But expectations alone don’t create results.
Many organizations are stuck in a holding pattern—testing tools and automating slivers of work but falling short of real transformation. The gap between AI’s potential and its payoff is clear. And it’s not a technical problem—it’s a systemic one.
Zühlke has already reached 30% productivity gains in the projects we deliver, and we see the opportunity to increase to 50% through our Cybernetic Delivery Platform.
Enter Cybernetics
To get real value from AI, we need to revisit a field that’s quietly been shaping systems thinking for decades: cybernetics.
Cybernetics teaches us to see organizations as dynamic systems – loops of information, feedback, and control. That’s the lens we need now. Not ‘Where can we use AI?’ but:
- What systems are broken?
- Where are feedback loops missing or misfiring?
- How can intelligence – human and machine – flow more effectively?
When AI is plugged into those feedback loops, performance lifts – this is what you obtain when the system becomes smarter, not just the software.
It’s not about the tool — It’s about the system
AI isn’t about replacing tasks. It’s about rewiring how decisions happen and how value flows. How fast your organization learns.
That’s cybernetics in action:
- Sensing
- Responding
- Learning
- Adapting
When you optimize that loop – powered by AI – the 30% isn’t an unrealistic expectation. It becomes the new normal.
The real competitive edge
The AI advantage won’t stem from having the largest model or the most integrations. Instead, it will arise from those who best understand their systems and transform them accordingly using advanced AI assistance.
“Cybernetics is how you deal with uncertainty. AI is how you do it much faster. Put them together – and expectations become results.”
In real life...
Your company has undoubtedly embraced AI rapidly, integrating it into various aspects of its business. According to Statista, by 2024, 72% of organizations worldwide had invested in AI and integrated it into at least one business function—a significant increase from 55% the previous year. Perhaps you’ve applied it to enhance customer service or develop new software and services.
According to Gartner, 86% of software development team members report improved productivity when using AI. Over half of these professionals indicate that this improvement exceeds 10%.
However, while the adoption demonstrates AI's appeal, you may have wondered how to use AI responsibly. For instance, you want faster product and service development cycles and the ability to adapt quickly to changing demands and market conditions.
We must reconsider how we empower our teams to confidently collaborate with AI, as a safe and reliable tool, particularly in environments requiring highly specialized expertise, where intensive interaction among multiple disciplines is essential to achieve successful outcomes.
How do teams work with this new tool?
In our experience, working with AI is akin to collaborating with a relatively new team member who requires guidance but is learning at an astonishing pace.
Some familiar ways of working in software delivery provide the backdrop for answering the question (notwithstanding AI’s use going far beyond):
- Agile Methods shorten feedback cycles, enhancing time-to-market and product-market fit.
- DevOps Practices bridge the gap between development and operations, promoting faster and more reliable delivery.
Building on these foundations, we began to explore the next level.
Back to the future: harnessing AI with Cybernetics Principles
Enter cybernetics, a concept you may recall from science class. Derived from the Greek word for "steersman," cybernetics studies circular causal processes like feedback and recursion. This multidisciplinary approach is crucial when developing collaboration models between humans and AI — and even among human teams.
Based on these considerations, we developed the Zühlke Cybernetic Delivery Method™ (CDM) to systematically align AI capabilities with business objectives. Through feedback loops, patterns, and interdisciplinary communities, CDM enables the responsible use of AI – fostering sustainable innovation, collaboration, and customer focus.
“Zühlke engineers applied a new cybernetic-based method to help a struggling client team regain focus and close the project successfully. Frustration was high, but the approach restored confidence in human value supported by AI. The client also reported a notable boost in efficiency — around 30%.”
The powerful principles cybernetics introduces can directly support responsible AI use:
Firstly, we combine the strengths of Humans and Machines to free up mental capacity to keep the focus on what matters. Feedback loops help keep everyone aligned on the company and shared team goals—even as those goals evolve. They also help us achieve the quality levels that keep us competitive.
Secondly, akin to some contemporary software practices, cybernetics emphasizes the importance of establishing and utilizing patterns. We can develop and implement reusable practices based on proven methods that extend beyond software development. For instance, in our experience with consulting and development projects, using an AI assistant during the discovery phase can cut time by up to 75%, conserving significant human and financial resources while creating a competitive advantage. A concrete example is a consulting project that use AI assistants during its discovery phase to deliver results after just five intensive days instead of the typical two months.
Another notable example of the added value of using patterns is modernizing an IT landscape filled with numerous software products that utilize outdated coding languages. Using an AI assistant helped keep the entire team focused on the desired results and increased the team's productivity by an estimated 30%.
At this early stage, patterns can already be classified. And designed to create a Discipline Flow for linking patterns to engineering disciplines: delivery management, quality assurance, security, and AI tool governance.
“Those who integrate AI thoughtfully and responsibly will unlock unprecedented levels of agility, creativity, and efficiency in delivering digital products and services.”
Finally, fostering Communities and promoting continuous learning: Establishing knowledge-sharing spaces ensures that experiences and insights are gathered and disseminated across disciplines. Cybernetics advocates for lightweight yet effective learning practices that empower teams to evolve alongside advancing AI capabilities.
Perhaps most importantly, we’ve discovered that these improvements enhance productivity and bring greater joy to our work. The way we now utilize AI elevates our roles by allowing our well-supervised AI colleagues to assist us in various ways, virtually eliminating routine tasks so we can focus on innovating much faster.
The overall outcome can be a significant productivity improvement, as shown in a client project that aimed to replace old software products by “translating” them into state-of-the-art coding.
CDM and accelerators
We are already working on taking the productivity gains from AI augmented delivery to the next level. We believe that up to 50% is quite possible when we combine CDM with our development platform, the Zühlke Platform Plane, to create a Cybernetic Delivery Platform: that provides teams with ready-made standard CDM pattern implementations bringing them immediate benefits.
