Pilot purgatory
The failure pattern in which a pilot persists indefinitely without resolving into scale or stop, for lack of pre-set success criteria and a go/no-go rule; the pattern behind McKinsey's two-thirds-stuck finding (2025).
Defined in 2 GAGE programs, which carry 3 distinct definitions of it. The wording above is taught in AI Literacy & Professional Conduct.
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.
The failure pattern in which a pilot persists indefinitely without resolving into scale or stop, for lack of pre-set success criteria and a go/no-go rule; the pattern behind McKinsey's two-thirds-stuck finding (2025).
The state of an initiative that neither ships nor dies but drifts indefinitely as "almost there" or an endless series of "phases," consuming resources without delivering value. The 90-day rule exists to prevent it.
The failure mode in which pilots run indefinitely without resolution because nobody will declare failure and criteria keep sliding; prevented by hard kill criteria and a maximum duration set in advance.
Where it is taught
The exact lessons this term appears in. The first 7 topics of every program are free with a free account.
- AI Change Management Frameworks · AI in the Workplace and Team Leadership, AI Literacy & Professional Conduct
- Why Transformations Fail, and How Not To · AI Literacy for Decision Makers, Business AI Transformation
- Pilot Strategy and Proof-of-Concept Design: Your Pilot Design Brief · Implementation from Pilot to Scale, 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.