Bound the change
Run a reversible AI pilot with an exit
Pilot one workflow slice with named owners, approved data, acceptance evidence, support, stop conditions, and a clean removal path.
What this guide should leave behind
A time-bounded pilot decision shows what changed, what evidence was collected, what remains unknown, and how the business can stop safely.
Work the evaluation in this order
- 01
Set the workflow slice, participants, start and end dates, current baseline, desired evidence, prohibited uses, approved data, and accountable owner.
- 02
Configure the smallest access and integration footprint. Train participants on the review rule, incident path, records boundary, and fallback.
- 03
Collect evidence for output quality, review effort, exceptions, operating time, support load, cost categories, information handling, and user impact.
- 04
At the gate, choose adopt, revise, extend, stop, or escalate. Export needed records, remove access and connectors, delete trial data where required, and record the decision.
Evidence worth seeing
- The pilot has explicit stop conditions and an owner who can invoke them.
- The baseline and acceptance evidence were defined before the trial result was known.
- The fallback remains available and participants know when to use it.
- The closeout covers access, connectors, data, records, billing, support, and lessons.
Know when general guidance stops
Use qualified review before expanding a pilot into consequential decisions, customer-facing automation, regulated information, broad integrations, public claims, or organization-wide deployment.