Pilot Rescue & ROI Verification
Stalled AI Pilot Rescue & ROI Verification Sprint
Fixed-price 3-4 week sprint that takes one stalled AI rollout to a measured, adopted workflow with a before-and-after number your board can see. $10k-$20k.
42%
of companies abandoned most AI initiatives in 2025 (S&P Global)
46%
of AI proofs-of-concept scrapped by the average firm (S&P Global)
3–4 wks
from post-mortem to a measured, adopted workflow
Your AI pilot launched with a demo and applause. That was eight months ago. Now the board is asking “what did we get for that?” and the honest answer is a shrug.
This is the most common outcome in AI right now, not the embarrassing exception. As of 2026, 42% of companies have abandoned most of their AI initiatives, up from 17% a year earlier, and the average firm scrapped 46% of its proofs-of-concept (S&P Global, 2025). Gartner predicts over 40% of agentic AI projects will be canceled by end-2027. The tools weren’t fake. The rollouts were unfinished.
The rescue sprint finishes one.
What the Rescue Sprint Is
A fixed-price, 3-to-4-week engagement that takes one stalled AI rollout (a Copilot deployment, a chatbot, an agent pilot) to a measured, adopted workflow with a number a board can see.
The deliverables, named:
- Pilot post-mortem. Why it stalled: wrong task, no owner, no training, no measurement, or the champion left. Usually more than one.
- Task re-selection. The original pilot often aimed AI at the wrong job. We re-aim it at work AI can reliably do today, in your workflows.
- Workflow rebuild and embed. Built into the tools your team already uses, not a separate destination they’ll never visit.
- Adoption handoff. A named internal owner, role-specific enablement, and a prompt library your team controls after I leave.
- Measurement design + 30-day readout. A before-and-after metric, agreed up front, reported at day 30. This is the number you take to the board.
Price: $10k–$20k, fixed. Exact figure in the proposal, no mid-sprint changes.
Why an Independent Verifier and Not the Original Vendor
Whoever sold the pilot has one honest option when it stalls: sell you phase two. I don’t have that option, because I don’t sell the build. No platform reselling, no vendor commissions, no retainer hiding inside the sprint.
That independence changes what the deliverable can be. If the rollout can produce ROI, you get it working and measured. If it can’t, you get that answer in writing, with evidence, in week one instead of after another budget cycle. Either way, you’re done wondering.
The Objection You’re Probably Thinking
“We already paid once and got nothing.” Right, and that’s exactly why this is scoped the way it is: fixed price, working workflow as the deliverable, and a measured number as the finish line. Not a strategy deck, not a roadmap, not a recommendation to buy more software. If a sprint can’t plausibly reach a measurable result, I’ll tell you on the free call and we don’t start.
Who This Is For
- Companies of 50 to 500 people that deployed Microsoft 365 Copilot, a chatbot, or an agent pilot 6 to 12 months ago and can’t point to a measurable result
- Teams on a Microsoft 365, Salesforce, or HubSpot stack, where rebuilt workflows have somewhere real to live
- Leaders who need something finished to show a board, an owner, or an investor, not another experiment
If the pilot surfaced governance questions too (an enterprise customer questionnaire, a board asking about exposure), the AI Governance Readiness Sprint handles that side. If the team needs skills more than rescue, start with AI training. And when the sprint ends and someone asks “who keeps this running?”, that’s the Fractional Chief AI Officer retainer.
What Happens on the Free Call
The first step is a free 30-minute pilot post-mortem. I’ll run five checks on why your rollout shows no measurable ROI: the task it targeted, who owned it, how it reached users, what training happened, and what was being measured. You leave the call knowing why it stalled, whether a rescue sprint makes sense, and what it would cost. No deck, no pressure.
Book a free 30-minute pilot post-mortem: calendly.com/ronankeane/ai-revenue-acceleration-readiness-discovery-call
Or send a message if you’d rather describe the situation in writing first.
/faq
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from going back to the vendor who built the pilot?
The original vendor has an incentive to sell you more of what already didn't work. I'm decoupled from that build: I don't resell platforms, I don't take vendor commissions, and my deliverable is a working workflow plus a measured number, not a proposal for phase two. That independence is the point.
What if the pilot turns out to be unsalvageable?
Then you'll know that in week one, with evidence, and we re-aim the sprint at the highest-value task the technology can actually do for your team. The post-mortem isn't a formality: sometimes the right answer is a different workflow than the one you bought. Either way you end the sprint with something working and measured.
What exactly do we get at the end?
Five things: a pilot post-mortem documenting why the rollout stalled; a re-scoped task selection matched to what AI can reliably do today; a rebuilt workflow embedded where your team already works; an adoption handoff with a named internal owner and a prompt library they control; and a measurement design with a 30-day readout showing the before-and-after metric.
How much does the rescue sprint cost?
Fixed price between $10,000 and $20,000 depending on the workflow's complexity and the systems it touches. You get the exact number in a proposal after the free 30-minute post-mortem call, and it doesn't change mid-sprint.
We already paid once and got nothing. Why would this be different?
Three reasons. The price is fixed, so scope creep is my problem, not yours. The deliverable is a workflow your team uses plus a number, not a deck. And I'm a verifier, not the seller: if the honest answer is that the original build can't deliver ROI, that's what the readout will say.
Who runs the workflow after you leave?
Your team. The sprint includes an adoption handoff with a named internal owner, documentation, and ownership of the prompt library. If you want ongoing senior oversight after that, the Fractional Chief AI Officer retainer exists for exactly that, but it's optional, not built into the price.
/next step
Ready to talk specifics?
Schedule a 30-minute discovery call. No pitch deck, just a direct conversation about where your team is and what's blocking progress.
Last updated: July 2, 2026