GoKawiilOpinion piece warns enterprises that pilot program success can mask rollout failures
An Entrepreneur contributor describes a case study in which a large company piloted a new cross-functional approval process in one business unit, replacing separate operations, finance and technology reviews with a single issue owner bringing decisions directly to an executive sponsor. The pilot succeeded partly because it received special organizational support, including priority access to shared specialists and direct executive attention, that would not exist once the process was expanded company-wide.
GoKawiil's interpretation of the reporting above, not reported fact.
The author argues that favorable conditions protecting a pilot can hide structural issues that only surface during a full rollout, such as competing priorities, limited access to decision-makers and existing approval bottlenecks. This suggests organizations should test new processes under normal operating constraints rather than idealized ones, or risk mistaking a process design flaw for an execution problem during scale-up.
- A pilot's success may depend on special support unavailable during full rollout.
- Rollouts can expose organizational constraints, like competing priorities and approval bottlenecks, that pilots never faced.
- Treating rollout struggles as poor execution may misdiagnose an untested process design.
Source: entrepreneur.com — Bayo Akinola-Odusola, 2026-10-20
Published there as: “A Successful Pilot Doesn’t Guarantee a Successful Rollout. Here’s Why.”
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