Design a POC on one page

What you will learn Not a chapter to read but one to do. You will design one POC on a single page. The most important box is not the success criteria — it is the stop conditions.

What you need

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□ 40 minutes□ One candidate task chosen earlier□ One person who actually does that work — without them, do not start□ One page or a spreadsheet

If you have not picked a task yet, do scoring your candidates for real first.

That third line is a condition, not a suggestion. A POC designed without the people who do the work stalls three weeks in, at "that is not how we actually do it."

Step 1 — Narrow it to one sentence (5 min)

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✗ "Improve customer enquiry handling with AI"      <- no boundary✓ "Draft the first reply to return enquiries"      <- one kind, one stage

What to look for

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□ Is it one kind of work?     (all enquiries ✗ / return enquiries ✓)□ Is it one stage?            (the whole response ✗ / first draft ✓)□ Can you name the output in one word?  (a draft)

If any answer is no, it is still too wide. The purpose of a POC is not results but a decision — the narrower it is, the sooner you decide.

Step 2 — Write today's numbers (10 min)

If you already have a baseline, copy it across. Otherwise write only what you can answer right now.

Item	Today's value	Where you checked
Volume (week/month)
Time per case
What quality is measured by today

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Blank rule:  If you cannot state a value, write "unknown" in the box.  Two or more "unknown" means: do not start a POC. Spend two weeks measuring.

Write "unknown" rather than leaving it empty. An empty box looks like something you forgot; "unknown" is a decision.

Step 3 — Success criteria (10 min)

It is only a success criterion if it contains both a number and a date.

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✗ "Quality improves"✗ "The team is happy with it"✓ "In six weeks, 60% or more of drafts are sendable as written"✓ "In six weeks, average handling time falls from 12 min to 7 min or less"

Our criteria	When	What	How much
1
2

Two at most. Write more than three and you will hit one of them and call it a "partial success."

Step 4 — Stop conditions (10 min)

This is the point of the exercise. Most POC documents have no such box, which is why POCs that are not working run for six months.

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On hitting any of these, stop immediately and re-decide:□ At week 3, if (            ) is below (        )□ If review time exceeds (   )% of the original handling time□ If the people doing the work say "it is more hassle" two weeks running□ If a single irreversible incident occurs -> stop at once

Why this matters more than the success criteria

Success criteria are used when it works. Stop conditions are used when it does not — and most POCs land on the second side. With no basis for that judgement written down, "let's give it a bit longer" repeats, because nobody finds it easy to propose killing the thing they started.

Stop conditions can only be written honestly before you start. Afterwards, the money already spent bends the judgement.

Step 5 — Collect it onto one page (5 min)

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[POC name][One sentence]    what, and up to which stage[Duration]        start ~ end (six weeks recommended)[Today's values]  volume / time / quality   (including "unknown")[Success]         two or fewer, with numbers and dates[Stop]            four conditions[People]          practitioner ( ) delivery ( ) decision-maker ( )[Out of scope]    three things you are not doing this time

Fill in that last line. Without "out of scope" written down, the scope grows mid-flight, the growth breaks the deadline, and the broken deadline postpones the decision itself.

Self-check

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□ The sentence is narrowed to one kind of work and one stage□ You wrote "unknown" honestly where you did not know□ Success criteria number two or fewer, with a number and a date□ You wrote four stop conditions   <- if this is empty, the exercise failed□ The decision-maker is named

If the fourth is unchecked, go back to step 4. A POC without stop conditions is not a design — it is a request for approval to begin.

Check yourself

1. Why do stop conditions matter more than success criteria?

Answer

Because most POCs end up on the "did not work" side. Success criteria are only used when it works; without a written basis for the other case, "a bit longer" repeats. And after starting, sunk cost makes honest writing much harder.

2. Why write "unknown" instead of leaving the box empty?

Answer

"Unknown" is a decision; an empty box looks like an oversight. Two or more of them immediately yields the judgement that you should be measuring, not running a POC.

3. Why write down what is out of scope?

Answer

Because scope grows during the run. The growth pushes the deadline, and a pushed deadline removes the moment of decision entirely. Nailing the boundary before you start is cheaper.

The final stage → Phase 4 — production rollout