Establish the baseline
- Cases processed each month
- Average handling time
- Hourly process cost
- Error and rework rate
- Cost of delay or missed opportunity
Calculate the full solution cost
Include models, infrastructure, integrations, security, testing, evaluation, monitoring and human work in addition to development. A cheap prototype can become an expensive production system.
Define the investment gate
Set the minimum improvement that justifies the next stage before the pilot starts. This protects the team from developing technology only because the first demo looked impressive.