The demo worked. The steering committee was impressed. Six months later the pilot is still a pilot, running on a sample of data, used by a handful of enthusiasts, with nobody quite sure who owns it.
Pilots stall for predictable reasons: no baseline to prove value, no owner in the business, data that only works in the demo, and controls that were never designed. This playbook takes one workflow from pilot to production in 90 days by fixing those four things in order.
The problem, and who has it
Technology leaders carry pilots they cannot scale. Business leaders see cost without results. Risk teams are asked to approve something at the last minute. Everyone is waiting on someone else.
The steps
Days 1 to 15: choose one workflow and measure it. Pick a workflow with volume, a clear output and a business owner who wants it fixed: invoice matching, contract first reads, claims triage, ticket routing. Measure today's cost, time and error rate before anything changes.
Days 16 to 30: fix the data the workflow needs. Not all of your data, only the fields and records this workflow reads. Name an owner for each and agree what "correct" means.
Days 31 to 60: build with controls in from the start. Set the agent's permissions, approval points and logging as part of the build, agreed with risk and audit early. A control added at the end is a delay; a control designed in is a feature.
Days 61 to 75: run in parallel. The agent works alongside the team on live cases. Compare its output with what people did, case by case, and fix what it gets wrong.
Days 76 to 90: go live and report. Switch the workflow over with people approving where the risk tier says so. Report against the baseline from day 1 in numbers the board already uses.
Who signs off
The business owner signs the baseline and the target. The CIO or CTO signs the architecture and access. Risk signs the tier and approval points. Finance confirms the numbers before they go to the executive team.
What good looks like
- One workflow fully in production, not a sample.
- A named owner in the business who reports on it monthly.
- A measured change against the day-1 baseline.
- A repeatable pattern for the second workflow, which should take half the time.
Put this playbook to work
Book a call and we will apply it to your organisation with your teams.
