Issue 02 companion · Your AI pilot failed before it started
The Pilot Pre-Flight
A pilot without a decision, a number, and an owner is a demo with a budget. Fill all three in one sentence each before the pilot gets a start date. If one stays blank, the problem is not scope. The thing has nothing to hold on to.
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What you are opening
Decision, number, owner. The three answers a pilot has to have before it gets a start date.
A live status. It stays held on the runway until all three are filled.
A baseline and a judgement date. So the result can be claimed later, and the pilot can be killed.
Prints clean. Take it into the room on paper if that is how the room works.
The Signal
The Pilot Pre-Flight
Issue 02 companion · Your AI pilot failed before it started
The Pilot Pre-Flight
A pilot without a decision, a number, and an owner is a demo with a budget. Fill all three in one sentence each before the pilot gets a start date. If one stays blank, the problem is not scope. The thing has nothing to hold on to.
Which recurring decision does it change? Which number moves if it works? Whose quarter is on the hook for that number?
Held on the runway Three answers outstanding.
The decision
The recurring call this pilot must change. Not a theme, a call somebody makes on a repeating basis.
The number
The one metric that moves if this works.
The owner
The named person whose quarter is on the hook for that number.
Where it stands today
The baseline. If you cannot state it, you cannot claim a result later.
The date you judge it
A pilot with no end date does not get killed. It gets forgotten.
Now narrow it until it is almost embarrassing
Do not pilot AI on customer service. Pilot it on refund approvals under five hundred dollars in one segment. Narrow gives it a floor, a ceiling, and an owner who cannot quietly wander off when the calendar fills up.
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