The pilot went well. Eleven months later it is still a pilot.

A proof of concept usually proves the wrong thing: why technically successful trials stall, and what separates a pilot that converts from one that quietly becomes the product.

By Steve 5 min read
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A pilot that fails is easy to read. A pilot that succeeds and then goes nowhere is the harder case, and it is far more common. The technology worked. The team liked it. The sponsor said all the right things in the review. And then the contract did not appear, the sponsor’s priorities moved, and eleven months later the arrangement is still described, by both sides, as a trial. The instinct is to treat this as a follow-up problem: more persistence, better closing. Usually it is a design problem. The…

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