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AI-to-Production Readiness Assessment
For owners of AI work and heads of AI who have one specific pilot or use case close to going live.
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In brief
This assessment shows whether one named AI pilot is ready to go live, and what is most likely to stall its hand-off. Your answers about ownership, data, approvals, process and operations give a readiness band, with next-week steps for the two weakest areas. Use it for one pilot at a time.
Step 1 of 5: Ownership
0 of 15 answered
- Ownership (current step)
- Data (not yet reached)
- Approvals (not yet reached)
- Process (not yet reached)
- Operations (not yet reached)
Ownership
Ownership is who receives the system from the project team, answers for it afterward and can change or stop it. A hand-off needs someone on the other end, and a pilot with no one to receive it stays a pilot.
Data
Data is whether the live system will be fed from a source that someone owns and keeps supplying, in a form the system can use. A pilot that ran on a prepared extract has not yet shown it can run on the data it will meet every day.
Approvals
Approvals are the sign-offs that the security, privacy and risk functions must give before a system goes live. Sought late, they set the date of go-live, whatever the project plan says.
Process
Process is the work around the system: who acts on its output, who handles the cases it cannot, and which old route stops being used. A system that sits beside the old process adds a step to it and is easy to ignore.
Operations
Operations is what keeps the system working after launch: a fallback, a way to see it drifting and a team that can fix it. The pilot team watched it by hand, and a live system needs that attention built into someone's routine.
Answer the 3 questions left on this step to go on.
Your result
Where your points are
Your two weakest areas
Your strongest area
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What does it mean to ask whether one pilot is ready?
This assessment is about a single named pilot: the one with a launch date, a project team about to disband and an executive asking whether it is good to go. It asks whether ownership, data, approvals, process and operations have been settled for this system, and names the two furthest from it.
It does not test the model, the data or the approvals, and it is not a reading of the whole organization, which the readiness assessment for a first initiative covers.
A pattern we are called into
A pilot that passed its demonstration and stalled at the hand-off
A team has run a pilot for one function with a group of willing volunteers. The demonstration went well and the sponsor has promised a launch date. Everyone calls the pilot ready because it works.
- The security review opens. The reviewers see the live design for the first time and ask where the data goes, what is logged and how a person overrides an output. None of it is built.
- The data feed turns out to be an extract. Someone has been cleaning a file by hand each week, and the team that owns the source has not been asked to supply it daily.
- The project team is released. The date holds. The person meant to own the system attended meetings but has no budget and no authority to change anything.
- Users outside the volunteers start. They distrust the output and keep the old process running beside it.
Where it endsThe system runs, then drifts. Some time later someone finds the output has been wrong for a while, and nobody can say whose job it was to notice.
Who should answer, and why not leave it to one person?
Have the pilot's owner and its project lead answer on their own, then compare. The lead knows what has been built, and the owner knows what they have agreed to take on. The gaps between their answers are often the most useful result. If no owner has been named yet, that is the first finding.
Answer for one pilot at a time, and choose the card you could back with a document or a demonstration, not the one that is planned.
Is this the assessment for your pilot?
Use it when
- One specific pilot is close to going live and someone has to say whether it can
- A launch date has been promised and you want to know what is most likely to move it
Look elsewhere when
- You need the model's accuracy tested, or its use checked against the law where you operate
- You want a view across several pilots at once, since the answers average out
The trade is focus against reach. One pilot gives a result you can act on, and every other pilot waits until you run it again.
What do the bands say about your launch date?
The bands speak to the hand-off and not to the quality of the pilot. A pilot can be impressive and still sit in Not ready, because impressive describes the demonstration and ready describes everything around it. Ready to hand off means the arrangements exist; it does not say the launch will go well. The two lowest shares of points name the weakest areas, and their steps are written for the week after the result.
Which moves tend to follow a low result?
- 01
Put names against the gaps
For each answer that cost points, write who can close it and by when.
- 02
Book the approvers now
Send the live design to security, privacy and risk before the build is finished.
- 03
Settle the data supply in writing
Ask the owner of the source to commit to supply and to warn you of changes.
- 04
Set the day the old route stops
Agree it with the function head and announce it.
What do people ask before using the AI-to-production readiness assessment?
Can I assess all our pilots in one sitting?
No. Answer for one named pilot at a time. Across a portfolio the answers average out and hide the pilot in trouble. If you want a view of the whole organization before a first initiative, the enterprise readiness assessment covers that and this one does not.
Our pilot works well. Why could it still come out as Not ready?
Because impressive describes the demonstration and ready describes everything around it. The bands speak to the hand-off: owner, live data, approvals, process and operations. A pilot that passed its demonstration can stall when the security review opens or when the data feed turns out to be a hand-cleaned extract.
Does a high result mean the pilot can launch safely?
No. Ready to hand off means the arrangements exist, not that the launch will go well. Nothing is tested here, neither the system, the data nor the approvals. How accurate the model is, and whether its use is lawful where you operate, need a separate review.
Who should answer for the pilot?
The pilot's owner and its project lead, each on their own, then compare. The lead knows what has been built and the owner knows what they have agreed to take on. The gaps between their answers are often the most useful result. No named owner is the first finding.
Related
Is the hand-off date running ahead of the arrangements?
Describe what you are weighing in a few lines. A senior practitioner replies with a suggested first conversation.