From “we should look into AI” to a funded initiative in 90 days

Every leadership team has the list: AI, automation, a new platform, “something with our data”. The list is discussed twice a year and survives every meeting untouched — because “look into it” is not a task anyone can complete.

Why innovation stalls

Not for lack of ideas. It stalls because there is no bridge from interesting to funded: no owner, no criteria for what “worth doing” means, and no small, safe first step. So the ideas stay on the slide, and the budget goes to business as usual.

The 90-day bridge

Weeks 1–3: frame it. What business problem does this solve, for whom, and what would “working” look like? If there’s no answer, stop — that’s a result too, and a cheap one.

Weeks 4–9: test the riskiest assumption. Not a full pilot — the smallest experiment that produces real evidence. A prototype in front of five customers beats a feasibility study every time.

Weeks 10–13: decide with numbers. Scale it, park it, or kill it — with a business case built on what the experiment showed, not on vendor slides.

The discipline is the deliverable

After the first cycle, the process is repeatable — and the innovation list stops being a graveyard.

Have a list like this? Book a 30-minute discussion and pick the first candidate with us.