Most AI failures are predictable — if you dare to look for them before you start.

Why Phase Zero Matters: The Premortem That Saves AI Projects

A premortem is simple: “If this AI project failed one year from now, what would the root cause be?” Ask that question early, and you’ll see the same pattern appear in most organizations — gaps in Strategy, Data, Technology, People, or Governance.

That’s Phase Zero, and it determines everything that follows.

A quick example:

A health organization planned to roll out an AI scheduling assistant. Solid idea. Strong ROI case. Leadership was ready to move. But their premortem surfaced two quiet blockers:

• Appointment data wasn’t standardized across clinics
• No clarity on who had final scheduling authority

They realized the pilot would fail even if the model were perfect. That insight is the entire point of Phase Zero: it exposes the conditions that make AI succeed or fail before you spend a dollar building the solution.

Once they established data standards and clarified decision rights, the pilot was able to proceed with the second attempt.

The lesson is simple:

AI doesn’t fail because it’s complicated. AI fails because organizations skip the work that makes success possible.

If you want this kind of clarity, my StAIR-Ready™ baseline framework gives leaders a clean, objective starting point — without hype, jargon, or guesswork. Knowing where you stand is the smartest move you can make.

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