SHEPHERD

Most tools help you collaborate. Shepherd helps you align.

Shepherd gives teams two things most planning processes don’t: genuine clarity and alignment across the group, and concrete project documents they can actually use.

Project Design or Herding Cats — Which is Harder?

Getting a team to genuinely agree is harder than it looks. In a world where AI tools can generate a plan in seconds, timelines are tight, pressure is high, and trust is low — collaboration is hard. Important perspectives go unheard, feedback comes in scattered and late, decisions that felt solid one meeting, fall apart in the next, and no one seems to know what they are supposed to be doing (despite the 10 email reminders you sent).

The cost of all this isn’t just frustration, it’s time.

Teams that shortcut alignment during design spend MONTHS during implementation reworking plans, renegotiating scope, and resolving conflicts that could have been surfaced early. You didn’t save time skipping on the design phase. Your first year of implementation becomes unofficial project design, except now your budgets are already committed and your stakeholders are losing confidence. It’s not a fun place to be.

Most tools assume alignment already exists. Shepherd is designed to intentionally help you build it — before implementation begins, when it is still possible to change course without losing momentum.

How Shepherd Works

A Tailored Path from Individual Thinking to Shared Plans

Shepherd doesn’t lock you into a one-size fits all process. You select the outputs your team needs, and Shepherd tailors the workflow to get you there. You only do the work that feeds directly into the documents that you want.

Additionally, not every team member needs to complete every module. People are busy and the quality of inputs matter so, Shepherd lets facilitators assign team members to the modules where their expertise and perspective matters most. At every step, each team member can see exactly what their role is and what is expected of them, so no one is guessing about where they fit in the process.

Users can select from any combination these documents:

Step 1: Choose What Your Team Needs

Shepherd output selection screen showing 10 available project documents including comprehensive plan, theory of change, MEL plan, stakeholder map, system map, risk matrix, budget, objective, problem statement, and governance document
Shepherd individual exercise interface where team members share their vision of project success, showing module navigation sidebar with 8 completed modules and step-by-step progress tracking

Each participating team member shares their unique perspective independently so that every voice is captured, not just the loudest.

Step 2: You Start Solo

Step 3: AI Helps You See the Full Picture

Your team brings the context, expertise, and lived experience that no AI can replicate. Shepherd’s AI brings what it’s best at — pattern recognition. It synthesizes all the inputs from Step 2 to show where you’re aligned, where you see things differently, and where assumptions need a closer look. The goal isn’t to replace your judgement; it is to help your team understand each other better.

Shepherd AI-powered response analysis showing team alignment score of 8.0 out of 10, with side-by-side comparison of similarities and differences in team member perspectives on project objectives

Step 4: You Work Through It Together

Shepherd platform showing AI-generated discussion questions for team collaborative exercise, with prompts addressing project scope, budget feasibility, and stakeholder inclusion

The team reviews the analysis, discusses what matters, and completes a collaborative exercise to help close the gaps. Shepherd structures this process and keeps it on track, but when it comes to navigating real disagreements and catalyzing honest conversations, a skilled human facilitator is still essential. Shepherd is a powerful facilitation tool - not a replacement for the humans in the room.

Step 5: You Vote and Move Forward

Built-in, anonymous voting makes decisions visible and accountable. If the team agrees based on a previously determined voter threshold, you advance. If not, you revisit and revise. Nothing moves forward without buy-in and you now have a clear record of agreement for any of those ‘revisit’ conversations.

Shepherd team voting interface showing 6 of 6 team members voted on a proposed group project objective, with individual vote status tracking

Step 6: Your Documents, Built in Minutes

Steps 2-5 repeat through each module (with some variation depending on the module) until you have completed all the modules required for your documents. Once the modules are complete, Shepherd uses AI to compile your team’s inputs, decisions, and consensus into polished project documents — in minutes instead of days.

But even here, the team stays in control. Every generated document goes through a gap analysis, review and voting process before it’s finalized. AI does the compiling, your team does the approving.

Shepherd document gap analysis identifying additional information needed from the team before finalizing the project design document, with priority-ranked questions
Shepherd document editor showing AI-generated comprehensive project plan sections including executive summary, problem statement, stakeholders, and scope — with data quality indicators and PDF and Word export options

By the end of the process you have collaboratively build project documents that reflect the input, thinking and decisions of your team. The final outputs aren’t AI plans — they are your team’s plans assembled faster than any human could do alone.

As Peter Senge put it, “People don’t resist change; they resist being changed.” When your team builds these plans together — working through real disagreements, testing assumptions, and choosing to move forward — what you get isn’t just a document. It’s a team that has a collective understanding and dedication to the path forward that they themselves have crafted.

Shepherd Supports Facilitators. It Doesn’t Replace Them

Shepherd handles the structure: collecting input, surfacing patterns, tracking decisions, and generating documents. But when it’s time to work through real disagreements and help a team build lasting trust around common ground, that’s where a skilled facilitator makes the difference. Whether “Facilitator” is in your job title or not, Shepherd gives the people making these conversations happen: better information, a clearer process, and more time to do what only humans can do — steer the conversation to new ideas.

Illustration of a diverse team in collaborative discussion, with thought bubbles showing data analysis, communication, networking, and research — representing multi-stakeholder project design

Who It’s For

Built for Teams Where Alignment Is the Work

If your project involves multiple stakeholders, complex decisions and real consequences when people aren’t on the same page — Shepherd was built for you.

Shepherd is NOT going to be much help if:

  • Teams that already have alignment and just need a document — Your team has genuinely already worked through the hard conversations and you just need a document write-up. This process will feel like overkill.

  • Projects with only 1-2 people — Shepherd’s value comes from synthesizing multiple perspectives. If it’s just you and one other person, you can probably hash things out over coffee.

  • Teams looking for AI to write the plan for them — Shepherd doesn’t generate plans from a prompt. It requires your team to do the thinking. If you want to skip the human input, this isn’t the tool.

  • Urgent, emergency response projects — If you need to mobilize in 48 hours, a structured multi-modal consensus process isn’t the right speed. Shepherd is for projects where investing in design upfront saves time later.

  • Teams that aren’t willing to surface disagreements — Shepherd works because it makes hidden misalignment visible. If leadership doesn’t actually want honest input from the team, the tool will surface things they would rather avoid.

Frequently Asked Questions

  • Project management tools help you track tasks once you have a plan. Shepherd helps your team build that plan together — with structured input, AI-powered analysis, and consensus-based decision-making. Shepherd is for the design phase; your project management tool is for the execution phase.

  • A theory of change is a document that maps the logic connecting your project's activities to its intended outcomes — the shared story of how and why your project will work. Yes, Shepherd guides your team through building one collaboratively, and AI compiles your team's inputs into a polished theory of change document.

  • Absolutely. Shepherd is built for asynchronous collaboration — team members can contribute their input on their own time, across any time zone. The platform works just as well for remote teams as it does for groups working together in the same room.

  • A MEL plan (Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning plan) is a framework for tracking project progress, measuring results, and building in opportunities to learn and adapt. Shepherd guides your team through defining indicators, assigning accountability, and establishing measurement approaches — then compiles everything into a complete MEL plan document.

  • It depends on the size of your team and how many outputs you select. A team working on a comprehensive project plan might take a few weeks to work through all the modules. Teams that only need specific documents — like a risk assessment or stakeholder map — can move through the process faster. Either way, it's significantly faster than traditional approaches.

  • No. But also Yes. Your team does the thinking — AI helps with pattern recognition and document compilation. Shepherd's AI analyzes your team's inputs to surface alignment and disagreements, and then assembles your team's decisions into polished documents. Every document goes through team review and voting before it's finalized.

  • No. Facilitators can assign team members to the modules where their expertise matters most. Your finance lead contributes to the budget module, your M&E specialist focuses on indicators, and so on. Everyone can see their role and what's expected of them at every step.

  • A logical framework (logframe) is a traditional project planning matrix used widely in international development. Shepherd doesn't generate a logframe directly, but it produces the building blocks that feed into one — project objectives, indicators, assumptions, and a theory of change — with the added benefit of genuine team consensus behind each element.

  • Shepherd is designed for multi-stakeholder teams. There's no strict cap, but the process works best with teams that have enough diversity of perspective to benefit from structured alignment — typically 4 to 20 people.

  • Every Shepherd project requires at least one facilitator (up to two). Facilitators configure modules, assign team members, schedule discussions, guide collaborative exercises, and move the project forward. Shepherd handles the structure; facilitators handle the human dynamics.

Want to Try Shepherd?

Shepherd is currently in a limited release. If you’d like early access to the test version to explore how it works—and help us shape it— get in touch! We are onboarding a small group of users now!