Pilot Owner & Approval Rules: Appoint one pilot owner to decide on stopping or recommending the AI trial.; Set approval conditions before testing—don’t change rules after results appear.; Define mandatory criteria like data accuracy and recovery routes to block approval if failed.
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Pilot Programs

Part of AI procurement and pilot programmes

Choosing a pilot owner and approval criteria

Assign an AI pilot owner, record decision rights and set adoption gates before seeing results.

Desk Procurement · · 2 min read

Appoint one accountable business owner for the AI pilot. That owner can stop the exercise and present its recommendation. Name separately who may approve data use, spending and any eventual deployment. Set approval conditions before results appear, so a persuasive demonstration cannot change the decision rule halfway through.

Assign the decision rights

The owner should represent the work the tool is meant to improve. They need to define the business result, secure reviewer time, resolve ordinary trade-offs and account for exceptions. They may need specialist approval for matters outside their authority.

Treat these as practical pilot roles rather than prescribed job titles. Assign each decision to a person with authority to make it:

Decision or work / Named owner to record

Business result and recommendation
Pilot owner
Source facts and acceptable output
Task expert
Data boundary and account permissions
Relevant privacy and security owners
Spending and purchase terms
Budget and contract owners
Day-to-day exceptions
Person able to take over the task

One person may hold several roles. The record still needs to show which decisions that person can make and which require another approval.

Assigning Decision Rights in an AI Pilot

  1. Business result and recommendationPilot owner
  2. Source facts and acceptable outputTask expert
  3. Data boundary and account permissionsRelevant privacy and security owners
  4. Spending and purchase termsBudget and contract owners
  5. Day-to-day exceptionsPerson able to take over the task

Set approval criteria that can stop the purchase

Start with the task’s finish line and the effort needed to reach it. For a fictional supplier-enquiry draft, a required result could retain every condition in the approved information sheet, identify missing details and avoid an unsupported promise. The reviewer must also be able to check and hand over the draft with acceptable effort compared with the current process.

Separate mandatory conditions from qualities that allow judgement. An unauthorised input, consequential wrong claim or failure with no owned recovery route may block approval even if other outputs are good. Record the evidence for variable qualities such as clarity or ease of editing. Use “cannot judge” where a material source or account answer is missing.

Do not adopt a percentage threshold merely because a form offers one. If a numerical threshold helps, set it from the task’s consequences, baseline and available review capacity before testing.

Close with a bounded sign-off

The owner’s recommendation should state the tested conditions, material failures, remaining questions and proposed use. Each specialist records a decision for the matter they own.

Any adoption approval names the permitted users, task, data classes and human check. If approval depends on a changed plan, source, setting or workflow, test that condition before extending the use boundary.

Key Governance Metrics for AI Pilots

Named pilot owner
Yes
Defined business result
Required
Approved data classes
Specified
Human check requirement
Mandatory
Permitted users defined
Yes
Testing under changed plan before expansion
Required

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