Scorecard · No. 13 / 17
What should a bounded 90-day pilot contain?
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Use 90 days as a purchasing boundary, not a promise that visibility or revenue will improve within that period. The following is an illustrative design for one B2B software category.
Proposed scope
- One buyer segment and one US market definition.
- 24 core buying prompts, with branded verification and exploratory variants reported separately.
- Two buyer-relevant surfaces, selected using the buyer’s available discovery evidence.
- Five scheduled observations per prompt and surface per wave.
- Four waves: two baseline waves and two follow-up waves.
- 960 planned observations: 24 × 2 × 5 × 4, before separately logged retries.
- A fixed competitor set, approved metric dictionary and claim-accuracy register.
These numbers are a manageable starting design, not a statistical sufficiency claim. Use the baseline to decide whether the design can support the intended decision. If it cannot, narrow the question or revise the sampling plan before claiming lift.
| Period | Work | Acceptance decision |
|---|---|---|
| Days 1–14 | Confirm prompts, access arrangements, scoring and baseline collection; test exports | Can the buyer inspect and recalculate the baseline? |
| Days 15–30 | Diagnose gaps and select a small intervention set | Is each action supported by a specific observation and owner? |
| Days 31–60 | Deploy approved changes and complete QA | Were the changes implemented accurately and safely? |
| Days 61–90 | Collect comparable follow-up evidence; review referrals and customer evidence | Continue, redesign or stop—with limitations recorded |
Define success on three levels:
- Delivery: agreed work was implemented and checked.
- Measurement: the collection and scoring were sufficiently complete and comparable for the decision.
- Outcome: a commercially relevant signal changed enough to justify further investigation or investment, without unacceptable accuracy or compliance deterioration.
The first two can pass while the outcome remains inconclusive. Report that result honestly.