NOVO Compass · Secure AI advisory, governance, and delivery
Secure AI for small and mid-sized businesses.
Compass is NOVO's program for adopting AI safely, building what your business actually needs, and operating it under enterprise-grade governance — without the extended transformation timeline.
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Why Compass
AI is moving faster than most businesses can govern it. And slower than most businesses need it to.
Two things are usually true at the same time. Your team is already using AI tools — some sanctioned, some not. Governance is behind. At the same time, the specific AI build that would actually move metrics in your business hasn't been delivered (aka “shipped”), because nobody on staff has the time, the right tools, or the right experience.
Compass is built for both problems. It's a four-component program that brings AI adoption, training, governance, and execution together — but it's also designed so any one component can stand alone if that's where your business needs help.
Common executive questions about AI initiatives
What customers usually ask before engaging.
The Compass program
Four components. Engaged together — or wherever you need to start.
Compass works as an integrated program when your business is ready for that. It also works as four distinct services when you need just one — most often Achieve, when you have a specific build in mind and want to deliver it fast.
Component
Compass Explorer
Find the high-leverage AI opportunities
NOVO's purpose-built AI agent runs structured process-discovery conversations across your business — turning weeks of consultant interviews into hours, and surfacing a prioritized backlog of opportunities ranked by leverage and feasibility.
Learn more →Component
Compass Guide
Train your people on Microsoft AI
Adoption services for Microsoft Copilot and Power Platform. Includes a Champions program to build internal capability and an LMS for ongoing reference and onboarding new hires. Turns Copilot licenses into measurable productivity outcomes.
Learn more →Component
Compass Command
AI Advisory + AI Operations
A recurring managed service that puts a fractional AI Advisory and AI operations team behind your AI program. Includes AI Council participation, agent and connector governance, monitoring, monthly Governance Pack reporting, and CAB/ARB change control.
Learn more →
Not sure where to start? Walk through your situation with NOVO →
How Compass work gets delivered
Continuous delivery, not big-bang projects.
Most consulting work follows the same broken pattern: months of discovery, a fixed-scope statement of work, and a delivery cycle that ends before the actual high-leverage opportunities surface. By the time the project ships, the requirements have moved.
Compass operates differently. We maintain a continuously prioritized backlog of work, then deliver against it in two-week Sprints — shipping completed work every Sprint instead of waiting for a finished project. Customers see real outcomes within the first month. Priorities can shift between Sprints without renegotiating a contract. And work compounds: each Sprint builds on the last.
01
Backlog
Continuously prioritized opportunities, owned by your team
02
Sprint
Two-week delivery cycle
03
Demo
Sprint-end review, acceptance, and feedback
04
Deliver
Completed work in production — backlog updates, repeat
The key idea
By the time a traditional consulting project hits its first deliverable, Compass has typically shipped six.
Engagement model
Two ways to engage. Both run on the same Sprint cadence.
On-demand for project-based work. Reserved capacity for steady-state delivery. Both engagement models run on the same two-week Sprint cadence and the same delivery quality. The difference is how capacity is allocated to your work.
On-Demand
Sprint-by-Sprint engagement at standard rates. Best fit for specific builds, pilots, or one-time initiatives.
Engagements scheduled around current Sprint availability — typically a few weeks of lead time.
Reserved Capacity
Dedicated Sprint capacity over 6/9/12 months at preferred rates. Sprint slots are committed in advance, so your work moves into delivery without queue time. Best fit for businesses with a steady stream of builds in flight.
Pairs naturally with Compass Command for governed delivery.
NOVO Compass Command is delivered as a recurring annual managed service — separate engagement model from the T&M components above.
How Compass uses AI
The AI shows up where it should — and stays out of where it shouldn't.
A lot of “AI-powered” services use AI as marketing veneer. Compass operates differently: AI is in the program where it creates real leverage, and absent where human judgment is what's needed.
Process discovery agent
AI at scale, not at the expense of judgment
Compass Explorer's AI agent runs structured process-discovery interviews with your team — at scale, in parallel, in days rather than weeks. The conversations are real, the analysis is grounded in what your team actually said. We don't replace the senior NOVO advisor on the engagement; we make their work substantially faster and more comprehensive.
Microsoft AI stack
Built on Copilot, Power Platform, and Azure OpenAI
Compass deploys, configures, and governs Microsoft 365 Copilot, Copilot Studio, Power Platform, and Azure OpenAI as the primary delivery target — operated within your tenant, your security boundary, your compliance posture.
AI tools, Microsoft governance
Best-of-breed tooling, Microsoft-grade controls
When the right build calls for tooling beyond Microsoft's first-party stack, we use it — and deploy it inside your secured Microsoft Azure environment. Best-of-breed AI development capability, with the governance, identity, and security model of the Microsoft enterprise stack.
Compass within NOVO
Compass doesn't stand alone.
Most AI work fails not because the AI is bad, but because the surrounding infrastructure isn't ready for it. Compass is built to plug into NOVO's broader portfolio — the same Microsoft enterprise stack used by the DoD and most of the Fortune 500 — so AI builds operate on a foundation that's already secured, modernized, and governed.
With NOVO Cloud
AI built on a modernized foundation
Cloud establishes the modernized infrastructure foundation. Compass builds AI capabilities that run on it — Azure-native, Copilot-ready, integrated with the rest of your Microsoft tenant.
With NOVO Secure & Compliance
AI under enterprise-grade governance
AI agents, workflows, and integrations operate under enterprise security monitoring and the regulatory governance your industry requires. Compass Command's AI Council coordinates with Secure and Compliance to keep AI within policy.
Related resources
Reading and tools that go deeper.
Published resources from the NOVO Resources library most relevant to this page — read in advance of a conversation or use to evaluate your own situation.
Tool · AI Adoption
AI Readiness Assessment
A self-service assessment for SMB customers evaluating their readiness for AI adoption. Covers data foundation, Microsoft platform readiness, security and compliance posture, governance maturity, and team capability.
Open the tool →Guide · AI Adoption
The Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness Checklist
A structured walkthrough of the data classification, oversharing cleanup, sensitivity labeling, and content governance work that gets a Microsoft 365 tenant Copilot-ready before deployment.
Get the guide →Blog · AI Adoption
Securing Microsoft Copilot for Your Organization
A practical guide to enabling Microsoft Copilot with governance, data protection, and measurable outcomes from day one.
Read the post →
Ready when you are
The fastest way to know if Compass fits is to talk through your specific situation.
Whether you have a specific AI build in mind, a broader program to develop, or just a list of questions you want answers to — there's a path for that. Schedule a 30-minute Compass consultation, or explore your situation interactively with NOVO's AI surface first.