From proof of concept to production without the pilot purgatory

"Pilot purgatory" is the place where promising prototypes go to wait. The demo impressed everyone, but a year later nothing is running in production. In our experience, the causes are rarely technical. They are decisions that were never made at the start.

1. Define the decision before the experiment

Every proof of concept should answer one question that someone with a budget cares about: Should we roll this out to all 40 depots? Can we cut claim processing time in half? If nobody owns the decision, nobody will act on the result.

2. Agree the success threshold up front

Write down what "good enough" means before seeing any results — for example, "the model must catch at least 80% of fraudulent claims with no more than 5% false positives". Without a threshold, every result becomes a debate.

3. Use real data from the first week

Synthetic or cleaned-up samples make prototypes look better than they are. We ask for a real extract early, with all its gaps and errors, because handling that mess is most of the work in production.

4. Plan the path to production from day one

Even a two-week prototype should note what production would require: integrations, security review, monitoring, people to operate it and the cost to run it. When the result is positive, the next step is already scoped.

What a good result looks like

A successful R&D engagement does not always end in a build. Sometimes the best outcome is a clear, evidence-based "no", reached in six weeks instead of eighteen months. That is still money well spent.

Want to structure your next pilot this way? Start a conversation.