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How to ThinkIn the Age of AI
Principlev1PR-2153

Design pilots with baseline measurements collected before…

Design pilots with baseline measurements collected before implementation and control conditions to distinguish intervention effects from external factors.

Why This Is a Principle

Derives from axioms about measurement changing behavior (Measurement of behavior changes the behavior being measured…) and learning from prediction error (Learning occurs when outcomes differ from predictions…). It prescribes experimental design principles for organizational pilots based on fundamental properties of measurement and learning.

Source Lessons

Pilot programs as system experiments

Test systemic changes on a small scale before rolling them out broadly. A pilot program is a bounded experiment — a deliberate test of the proposed system change in a contained context where the change can be observed, measured, and refined without risking the entire organization. Pilots serve three functions: they generate evidence (does the change produce the intended outcome?), they reveal unintended consequences (what side effects emerge in practice?), and they build organizational confidence (the change has been tested and it works). System changes deployed without piloting are organizational gambles — large bets on untested designs.

Connections

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