Kill criteria
Pre-agreed, objective conditions under which a project is stopped regardless of political momentum (for example, thesis invalidated, timeline past three times the estimate, budget past twice the estimate without progress). The half of pipeline management that organizations find hardest.
Defined in 4 GAGE programs, which carry 11 distinct definitions of it. The wording above is taught in Business AI Transformation.
How each discipline defines it
The same term does different work depending on who is using it. These are the definitions as each program teaches them, unedited.
Pre-agreed, objective conditions under which a project is stopped regardless of political momentum (for example, thesis invalidated, timeline past three times the estimate, budget past twice the estimate without progress). The half of pipeline management that organizations find hardest.
Pre-agreed, numeric conditions under which a project is paused or shut down, set in calm conditions rather than decided in a crisis. A stop rule written in advance is cheaper and steadier than one forced by a public failure.
The predefined, measurable conditions, decided before deployment, that trigger a move between offline states. A kill criterion written during an active incident is a pressured guess, not a control.
The specific, measurable evidence, set at the moment of funding, that would make an executive stop an AI initiative; what allows a portfolio to feed winners by stopping losers.
Pre-approved, objective conditions under which a pilot or the whole program should be stopped. Because they are signed off in advance, exercising them reads as discipline, not personal failure. Their absence produces the "pilot zoo."
Where it is taught
The exact lessons this term appears in. The first 7 topics of every program are free with a free account.
- Strategic AI Decision-Making Frameworks · Bonus: AI Leadership Accelerator, AI Literacy & Professional Conduct
- The Off Switch · Bounding by Design, Agentic AI Governance: Applied Mastery
- The investment memo: one page that survives a CFO · The Money: Budgets, ROI, and Risk, AI Governance: Applied Mastery
- The Operating Charter That Protects the Role · Own the AI Transformation Mandate, Business AI Transformation
- AI Market Disruption and Competitive Intelligence · AI Literacy for Decision Makers, Business AI Transformation
- Budget Strategy and Funding Models · The Economics and the Business Case, Business AI Transformation
- The Governance Operating Model, Speed and Control · Governance and Responsible AI, Business AI Transformation
- Program Management and Execution Discipline · Implementation from Pilot to Scale, Business AI Transformation
- Innovation Management and R&D Strategy · Measure, Sustain and Evolve, Business AI Transformation
- Capstone Phase 4 - The Blueprint and the Mandate · Capstone: Your Transformation Blueprint, Business AI Transformation
Terms it appears with
Not an alphabetical neighbourhood: these are the terms taught in the same lessons, ranked by how often they appear together.