Pick a task people can verify
Start with a narrow task such as drafting a summary from an approved document. Record how long the current process takes and what a good result looks like.
Set up a review
Ask the people who do the work to review the pilot output. Track factual errors, missing details, and how much editing each result needs. Use approved test inputs and decide who can access them.
Decide when to expand
Compare the time saved with the time spent reviewing and correcting output. If the pilot meets the agreed quality bar, broaden it one team or workflow at a time.
Worked example — Drafting internal handover summaries
Imagine an operations team spending 15 minutes preparing each handover summary. It runs a pilot using ten approved sample handovers. Drafting with AI and reviewing each draft takes nine minutes on average. Reviewers also find that two drafts omit an unresolved action. The team adds an explicit open-actions check and repeats the pilot before expanding it.
Pilot checklist
- Pick one workflow and record its current time, quality, and error rate.
- Define which inputs are allowed and who reviews the output.
- Set a quality threshold and record omissions as well as incorrect statements.
- Compare total time, including review, and decide whether to revise, expand, or pause.