Vendor Pilot and Exit Scorecard
Define the seat before evaluating the vendor.
Seat brief
| Question | Decision |
|---|---|
| Business outcome and constraint | |
| Function and decisions the seat owns | |
| Work and deliverables | |
| Required inputs and access | |
| Internal approver | |
| Cross-function handoffs | |
| Evidence and acceptance criteria | |
| Account, data, media, and IP ownership | |
| Budget and pilot window | |
| Stop and exit conditions |
Candidate comparison
Score each item Strong, Acceptable, Weak, or Unknown. Evidence matters more than polish.
Never ask a candidate to expose another client's confidential material. Useful evidence is permissioned, appropriately redacted, or recreated with clearly labeled synthetic data.
| Criterion | Rating | Evidence or question |
|---|---|---|
| Relevant remodeler or long-cycle work | ||
| Actual delivery team and available capacity | ||
| Understanding of service area and project fit | ||
| Proposed strategy and tradeoffs | ||
| Live walkthrough of a permissioned, redacted, or synthetic artifact and decision | ||
| Deliverable and handoff clarity | ||
| Measurement and qualified-outcome discipline | ||
| Company ownership and portability | ||
| Communication and documentation | ||
| Cost, dependencies, and hidden obligations | ||
| Pilot acceptance and repair path | ||
| Source/project-file return and tested exit handoff |
Pilot verdict
Record Continue, Repair and retest, or Stop. Cite the accepted deliverables, qualified evidence, unresolved unknowns, account/access state, artifacts returned, and the next decision date. Do not let a promising channel metric override broken ownership, untraceable results, or a failed trust boundary.
Use with Vendor Selection, Pilot, and Exit.