A school district superintendent wants to move directly into vendor selection for an AI tutoring pilot, but the data governance board, IT department, and teachers' union have not yet been consulted about data use, technical integration, or classroom impact. What should happen before vendor selection begins?
Select an answer to reveal the explanation.
Short Explanation
Think of picking a contractor before the family agrees on what the addition should even look like — you end up renegotiating everything after the ink is dry. Cross-functional alignment upfront means data governance, IT, and the people actually teaching the class all shape the requirements before a vendor's in the room. Skipping that step doesn't save time — it just moves the disagreement to a more expensive stage.
Full Explanation
A sound AI strategy sequences stakeholder alignment before vendor engagement because the requirements that matter — student data handling, system integration, and how the tool changes classroom workflow — come from the governance board, IT, and the teachers using it, not from a vendor's sales deck. Locking those requirements in first means the RFP and contract reflect real constraints instead of being renegotiated after selection, which is slower and costlier than getting input early. Briefing stakeholders only after a finalist is chosen inverts the sequence: the district has already committed political and staff capital to one vendor by then, making objections far harder to act on. Assuming the teachers' union has no standing in an instructional-technology decision ignores that classroom impact and working conditions are exactly what a union represents. Letting IT evaluate technical fit alone and deferring governance and instructional concerns to implementation pushes the hardest questions to the point where undoing a bad decision costs the most. Caveat: alignment doesn't require unanimous consent, just documented input before commitment. Operational check: confirm a signed-off requirements document referencing all three groups exists before the RFP goes out.