Building the 90-day business case
Baseline the target metric with real numbers, set a specific Day-90 success threshold in advance, and tie the case to an executive sponsor who owns the outcome. A case without a pre-set threshold cannot be judged objectively.
Baseline first, threshold second
You cannot prove improvement without a before number. Capture the current-state metric, then set the Day-90 threshold that would justify scaling. Both must exist before the pilot starts, not after.
A business case that says “AI will make us more efficient” cannot be judged; a case that says “current average handle time is 11 minutes, and we will scale if the pilot brings it under 8” can. Structured programs that set thresholds up front report 73% higher ROI, precisely because they only scale what beat the bar. The baseline also protects you politically: when the pilot works, you have an indisputable before-and-after to fund the rollout.
Frequently asked questions.
What if we cannot get a clean baseline?
That is itself a finding: if you cannot measure the current state, you likely cannot measure improvement either, which means the use case is not yet ready. Spend part of Phase 1 instrumenting the process to get a baseline before committing to the pilot.