Free Tool

Pilot-to-Scale Scorecard

Pressure-test any AI initiative before you burn a quarter on pilot theater.

Why This Exists

Most AI pilots fail—not because of technology, but because they were never designed to scale. Organizations run "experiments" without clear outcomes, ownership, or integration paths, then wonder why nothing sticks.

The gap between a promising demo and a production system is where most AI investments die. This scorecard forces the hard questions upfront—before you commit budget, before you announce it to leadership, before it becomes another line item in the "AI initiatives we tried" graveyard.

How To Use

  1. Name the initiative — What AI project are you evaluating?
  2. Score each question — 0 (No), 1 (Partial), 2 (Yes). Be honest. Generous scoring defeats the purpose.
  3. Review your band — See where you land and what it means.
  4. Download results — Export as CSV to share with stakeholders or revisit later.

Total time: 5 minutes. Total cost of skipping this: potentially a quarter of wasted effort.

Outcome & ROI

#1Outcome is explicit: "This pilot improves X by Y for Z users."
NoPartialYes
#2ROI is measurable: baseline exists + target metric defined (time, cost, revenue, risk, cycle time).
NoPartialYes

Workflow Fit

#3Lives inside an existing workflow: triggered by a real step in a real process (not a separate tool people "should" use).
NoPartialYes
#4Clear definition of done: what "in production" means (where it runs, who uses it, how often).
NoPartialYes

Ownership & Delivery

#5Single accountable owner: name + responsibility + authority to make tradeoffs.
NoPartialYes
#6Shipping plan: 2–6 week path to a live version with scope locked + milestones.
NoPartialYes

Data & Integration

#7Inputs are reliable: data sources identified + quality acceptable + access approved.
NoPartialYes
#8Integration path is real: APIs/tools selected, permissions resolved, system-of-record clear.
NoPartialYes

Risk, Quality & Adoption

#9Guardrails defined: human-in-the-loop, escalation paths, logging, acceptable error modes.
NoPartialYes
#10Adoption mechanism: training + prompts/templates + enforcement (nudges, defaults, leadership expectation).
NoPartialYes

Your Score

0 / 20

Answer all 10 questions to see your score band and interpretation.

Score Bands Reference

16–20
Scale Candidate
You're not just piloting—you're building a repeatable pattern. Ship it and replicate across similar workflows.
12–15
Ship-Ready (with fixes)
Worth doing, but close the gaps before launch. Focus on owner, metrics, integration, or adoption—whichever scored lowest.
8–11
Pilot Theater Risk
Likely to demo well and die quietly. Redesign scope, instrumentation, and rollout before proceeding.
0–7
Don't Pilot
Wrong problem or wrong shape. Redesign the initiative. Piloting this will waste time and credibility.

Disclaimer

This scorecard is a diagnostic tool, not a guarantee. Scores reflect your self-assessment and are only as accurate as your honesty. A high score doesn't ensure success—execution still matters. A low score doesn't mean the idea is worthless—it means critical gaps need addressing before you scale. This is not a substitute for professional judgment, technical due diligence, or organizational alignment. Use it to spark the right conversations, not to avoid them.

Scoring below 16? That's the gap we close.

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