Month one review: what's working, what to stop, what to scale

Month one isn't about declaring victory. It's about separating signal from noise in your early adaptation portfolio. Founders skip this review and accumulate zombie pilots — tools with logins but no impact — that drain attention and budget.

Gather evidence: KPI sheets, time maps, shadow AI trends, team feedback, customer comments. Score each initiative on three axes: evidence of benefit, cost/effort burden, strategic alignment with disruption map. Plot visually if helpful — high benefit/low burden scales; low benefit/high burden stops.

Stopping is leadership. Publicly retire failed experiments with lessons captured: 'Proposal bot reduced time but increased edits — pausing while we fix input templates.' This normalizes learning and frees resources.

Scaling requires operationalization, not just enthusiasm. Who owns the workflow? What's documented? What training do new hires need? How is compliance verified? A successful pilot without playbooks regresses when the champion gets busy.

Set month two priorities: maximum two scaled continuations, one new experiment, one governance improvement. Share results with the team and board using the format from day nineteen. Month one builds credibility for month two — if you're honest about both wins and misses.