THE DECISION QUALITY BRIEF•ISSUE 01•14 Sep 2026
A successful pilot has proved less than you think
By Dr. Eva-Marie Muller-Stuler
1. One Decision
Should a successful pilot justify releasing an AI system to enterprise production?
2. One Illusion (The False-Confidence Pattern)
The Pilot Fallacy: assuming that successful engagement in a controlled sandbox implies institutional readiness under real operational load.
3. One Piece of Evidence
A healthcare triage pilot that achieved 94% physician satisfaction in testing degraded to a 38% queue abandonment rate once live volume overwhelmed human escalation.
4. One Minimum Production Bar
Never authorize production release without tested degraded mode, verified review-capacity modeling, and an enforceable circuit breaker.
5. One Question to Take to Your Team
"Has our pilot tested how the system behaves when human reviewers are exhausted and downstream systems are slow?"
NEXT OPERATIONAL STEP
Take the Decision Quality ReviewApply this standard to your live system
Verify whether your team's evidence satisfies this week's production bar.