Extract from Olga V. Mack’s article, “A Proof Of Concept Is A Question, Not A Product.”
A pilot should have an end date, a decision owner, and an agreed set of possible next steps.
Picture the update at a legal department meeting: The AI pilot now has 40 users, access to live contracts, and a growing backlog of feature requests. Its creator is on vacation.
The slide still says “experiment.”
Somewhere between the promising demonstration and the vacation coverage problem, the prototype acquired a job. People began relying on it. Business processes adjusted around it. Turning it off became inconvenient.
Nobody remembers approving a permanent system.
