PrerequisiteRequires IL 201 passed, and IL 202 READY or READY WITH CONDITIONS with an approved remediation plan
0 / 2 completed
Learning objectives
State clearly at kickoff which already-approved version is being deployed, not a version the team keeps privately revising.
Use a RACI to separate the responsibilities of the sponsor, process owner, technical owner, and governance reviewer.
Define who holds stop authority, what triggers a stop, and the formal pilot period's start/end and checkpoints before the pilot begins.
The first meeting from PoV to controlled pilot
60 min
Confirm the approved version and RACI
IL 301 is the Industry AI Co-creation Lab's flagship course: it moves a validated Proof of Value into a controlled real operational setting. The 30 hours are formal guided learning time; the recommended project duration is 6-8 weeks, and the two should never be conflated. The Executive Kickoff is where the pilot starts: if the team cannot even name which version is being deployed, every later evaluation loses its point of comparison.
Four things the kickoff must confirm
Item
Description
Approved version
Cite the prototype version passed at the IL 201 Evidence Review and the scope approved at the IL 202 Readiness Review: not the team's latest work-in-progress draft
Name who can halt the pilot at any time, and how quickly the process must revert to the manual workflow after a stop
Pilot period
Formal start and end dates, plus at least three checkpoints (e.g. end of shadow mode, mid-point of small-scale trial, pilot close-out evaluation)
Warning
Common mistake: treating "we agree on the direction" as an "approved version." An approved version must be a concrete artifact with a version number traceable to an IL 201/202 decision record, not a verbal consensus in a meeting room.
Key takeaway: Without a clearly named approved version and stop authority at kickoff, every later piece of pilot evidence loses its traceable point of comparison.
60 min
Data/environment levels and the pilot period
Data/environment levels (Level A-D)
Level
Description
Level A
Real problem + synthetic data
Level B
Real problem + de-identified data
Level C
Controlled enterprise data
Level D
Enterprise sandbox or production-adjacent environment
Info
The Adoption Gate (Gate 4) is decided after IL 301: SCALE, LIMITED ADOPTION, ITERATE, HOLD, or STOP. At least one measurable primary KPI must fall into Efficiency, Quality, Experience, Economics, or Risk: kickoff should already state what this KPI is and who measures it.
1Exercise: draft a Kickoff Charter Addendum (using SYN-CS-001) Using the synthetic customer-service knowledge assistant (SYN-CS-001) at the example company "Demo Service Company A," draft a one-page Kickoff Charter Addendum.
2Field 1: approved version Cite a specific IL 201/IL 202 decision record (e.g. "Evidence Review: proceed_to_readiness, 2026-02-10").
3Field 2: RACI Fill in one role and a name (synthetic is fine) for the sponsor, process owner, technical owner, governance reviewer, and user representative.
4Field 3: stop authority and triggers Write who can call a stop, and at least two concrete stop triggers (e.g. "3 consecutive incidents with personal-data leakage risk").
5Field 4: pilot period and checkpoints Fill in start/end dates plus at least three checkpoint dates, mapped to end of shadow mode, mid-point of small-scale trial, and pilot close-out evaluation.
Check yourself
What is the single most important principle for "stop authority" at the kickoff meeting?
Key takeaway: A pilot is not a green light for production; the four data levels let every project gather evidence within a reasonable risk envelope. Stop triggers must be written down at kickoff, not improvised after something goes wrong.
