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The outcome you are walking toward
A pilot that ends with a decision, not a drift: one workflow running on the platform, proof criteria met or missed against numbers you wrote down before you started, and a review date where expansion is either approved or rejected on evidence.
1. Pick one workflow and name its owner
Choose a process that is bounded enough to reason about and real enough to matter — location-level approvals for one brand is the canonical first pilot. One named operator owns it. The pilot rollout checklist is the working sequence; this guide is the judgment around it.
2. Keep existing systems authoritative
During the pilot, your current system of record keeps its job. The platform earns authority; it is not handed it. Declare which system is authoritative for each data class before kickoff — this is what makes the pilot reversible and the evidence clean.
3. Write the proof criteria before you start
What number or behavior has to change, by when, for this to count as working? Write it down, attach it to the pilot, and share it with everyone who will sit in the review. Criteria invented after the fact are not criteria.
4. Run inside the console, not around it
The pilot team works in the operator console from day one — approvals, gates, and the audit trail are part of what is being proven. A pilot that routes around the platform's controls proves nothing about the platform.
5. Hold the review on the date you set
Expansion is a decision made on evidence at a known time. If the criteria are met, the next unit inherits the sign-on, data boundaries, approval gates, and audit trail — the economics of that inheritance are covered in From pilot to portfolio. If they are missed, that is a result too: fix the workflow or stop, but do not let the pilot fade into a permanent maybe.