the short answer
Five questions: who owns it, what can it do on its own, what's the number, where's the record, and what happens when it's wrong. If any answer is 'we'll work that out later', the project isn't ready to fund. I call this the Working Test.
George McKenna, Chairman and CTO, ETT Group. Updated 15 October 2026.
- Who owns it? One named person accountable for what it does in production, not a team or a department.
- What can it do on its own? The actions it can take without approval, the limits on amount, data and customer type, and what happens to everything outside them.
- What's the number? The measured cost of the process today, the expected result, and who will measure it.
- Where's the record? Whether you could show, months later, what the system did, under whose permission, with which data and where a person made the call.
- What happens when it's wrong? How you'll find out, who fixes it, and how the fix gets back into the rules.
The questions take an hour in the first meeting. They'll stop some projects early, which is cheaper than stopping them after a pilot. The full reasoning is in The Working Test.
the longer version
Show Your Working
A fortnightly piece on building and buying AI that pays its way. What I'm building, what it costs, and the questions to ask before you sign anything.