The Trap of Always Starting and Never Embedding

Many organisations claim they want to improve, learn, and innovate. In practice, this often takes the shape of a ‘pilot’. A new way of working, a different approach, a small-scale experiment, start small, scale if it works.

But let’s be honest: most of these so-called pilots aren’t really pilots at all.

A proper pilot requires preparation, clear boundaries, structure, and decisive follow-up:

• What exactly are we trying to test or learn?

• How will we measure success?

• When, and how, will we decide whether to scale up or stop?

In reality, we often see a different pattern: organisations initiate improvement efforts under the label of a pilot, but neglect the essential preconditions. The result: motion without direction, action without outcome, and ultimately, disappointment.

The Illusion of the Pilot Without a Decision Point

A real pilot is temporary, purposeful, and decision-driven. It’s designed to generate insight and enable deliberate choices. What we often encounter in organisations, however, looks more like this:

• No clear goal or hypothesis.

• No defined decision-making moment.

• Evaluation criteria are missing or too vague.

• And if the pilot ‘seems to work’, it either remains small or quietly disappears.

The pilot then becomes not a springboard for improvement, but a temporary refuge for good intentions.

Why This Happens

This pattern is rarely caused by unwillingness. It stems from a combination of organisational reflexes:

1. Avoiding real choices

Calling something a pilot allows an organisation to experiment without committing. It bypasses the need for alignment, capacity, or governance. Everything remains open, and nothing actually happens.

2. Fear of scaling

A successful pilot requires follow-up: funding, process changes, sometimes even restructuring. Many organisations shy away from that impact. So the pilot stays small and safe, and ultimately inconsequential.

3. Lack of ownership

If no one is accountable for what happens after the pilot, the energy dies exactly where it started. The initiator gave it a shot. The rest looked on.

What to Do Instead

If you truly want to learn and improve as an organisation, treat a pilot as what it’s meant to be:

1. Start with a clear hypothesis

What exactly are you trying to validate or disprove? Which assumptions are you testing? This helps prevent the pilot from turning into aimless activity.

2. Define decision moments upfront

Agree in advance when the pilot will be evaluated, and who will decide whether to stop, scale, or adjust. Put those decisions on the calendar and hold to them.

3. Define both success and failure

A pilot that delivers ‘no clear outcome’ is rarely neutral. Be explicit from the start about what will be considered a success, and what won’t.

4. Assign ownership from day one

If no one is responsible for post-pilot action, there will be no structural improvement. Without ownership, a pilot is just a temporary spark.

Final Thought

Most organisations don’t suffer from a lack of ideas. What they lack is discipline in how they explore and execute them. The reflex is to ‘try something’, without the structure to truly learn or decide.

If you want to continuously improve, don’t keep starting over; start with the end in mind. Only then does improvement become part of the work, rather than just wishful thinking.