Write success as a number before you build

Undefined success is one of the four leaks that drain AI value. If nobody agreed what good looks like before the build, any result can be called a win, and none can be proven.

The Success-Definition One-Pager fixes this in five fields: the baseline, the target, the one metric, the date and a named owner. If you cannot fill it in, the book's advice is to think harder before you build.

Two traps sit nearby. The first is the vanity metric: a number that measures activity, not value, such as queries handled. The honest question is always what got measurably better. The second is a missing baseline. Without the starting point, a later improvement cannot be shown.

Write the page during Diagnose, alongside the data gate. Then use it again at Validate, where the Validation Scorecard records the baseline, the target, the actual result, the verdict and who audited it. The sceptic's test closes the loop: would the finance manager accept this as proof?

In the DRIVE Implementer programme, every turn in your portfolio starts with this one page.