Choosing, Adopting and Retiring Tools

All courses / Tools / Module 1 / Chapter 3

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

Compare options for a tool against one unit of value and one quality constraint, including a non-AI option and doing nothing.
Interpret a readiness scorecard total and say what a band does and does not permit.
Design an adoption measure that shows use without reporting on named individuals.
Draft retirement criteria and an anti-pattern record that closes on a passed re-test.

Key concepts

Option comparison: An artefact of AI Governance, Chapter 16A: a fair comparison of build, buy, reuse, non-AI and do-nothing options against one unit of value, one quality constraint, a measured baseline, three-year cost ranges and exit and sovereignty terms.
Readiness scorecard: A 15-criterion scorecard of Architecture as Code (Chapter 26A), scored 1 to 5 across five dimensions. A total of 60 to 75 means ready to proceed with a focused pilot, 40 to 59 partial readiness, below 40 foundation work needed.
Adoption dashboard definition: A YAML metrics definition from AI Governance, Chapter 15, deployed by the same pipeline as the system. Its healthy range on the override rate encodes that both extremes fail: near zero means oversight has become ceremony.
Production readiness checklist: A YAML checklist of AI Platform and Security, Chapter 23, aligned to the deployer obligations of Article 26 of the AI Act. The pipeline blocks deployment until each item's evidence exists and is newer than the last model or prompt change.
Anti-pattern record: A record under the family AP with a pattern, evidence, a control, an owner and a re-test. Its closing rule is that the pattern is closed when a re-test passes, not when the remedy is merged.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Interactive exercise 1 · Match

Five questions an adopter asks

Match each of Rogers' attributes of an innovation with the architectural response that AI Governance, Chapter 15, gives to it.

Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario

A pilot that will not proceed

Choose what the owner of the pilot should do, following the chapter's section on retirement and exit.

Teaching plan

15 min	Present the lifecycle of Figure 3.1 and the two questions of the chapter. Map the five options of AI Governance, Chapter 16A, onto the four kinds of tool.
20 min	Teach adoption: the readiness scorecard and its bands, the five attributes of diffusion with their architectural responses, the champions charter and the adoption dashboard with its healthy range.
15 min	Teach gates, review and retirement: the production readiness checklist, knowledge hygiene, the four retirement instruments and the gap the chapter names. Compare the anti-pattern records of the volumes.
30 min	Exercise: groups write a five-phase adoption roadmap for one tool, modelled on the policy engine example of Nordvik Region.
10 min	Groups present one gate decision and one retirement criterion each; the room challenges any evidence that carries no date.

Discussion

The option comparison requires a row for solving the problem without AI and a row for doing nothing. Why do governance forums so often skip those rows, and what does skipping them cost?
The champions charter lists what champions do not do, including reporting on whether named colleagues use a tool. How does that list change what the adoption dashboard may show?
The chapter finds that the series has no single artefact that records a tool's retirement. What should such a record contain, and who should confirm it?

Written exercise

Exercise · 30 minutes

A five-phase adoption roadmap for one tool

Choose one tool your organisation is considering, or take the policy engine at Nordvik Region. Write a roadmap in the five phases of the chapter's worked example: select, pilot and prove, expand and federate, govern and optimise, sustain and retire. For each phase name the tools of the chapter you would use, the decision at the gate and the evidence that closes the phase. In the select phase include a non-AI option and do nothing. In the last phase write the retirement criteria as they would stand in the decision record, and list what would be revoked, deleted, archived and confirmed.

Deliverable: A table with five rows (phase, tools, gate decision, closing evidence) and a short list of retirement criteria with a review date.

Your work

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

A readiness scorecard for a planned pilot totals 52 points. What does the scoring guidance of Architecture as Code say?
Show the answer
C. Partial readiness: address the critical gaps before scaling
The bands are 60 to 75 ready to proceed, 40 to 59 partial readiness and below 40 foundation work needed. A total of 52 falls in the middle band, and the chapter adds that readiness is a dated reading, not a certificate.
In the adoption dashboard definition, what does an override rate near zero indicate?
Show the answer
B. That oversight has become ceremony, which is a failure just as a high rate is
The healthy range on the override rate encodes that both extremes are failures: a rate near zero means oversight has become ceremony, and a high rate means the model is not good enough to deploy.
When, according to the anti-pattern records of AI Operations and AI Blue, is an anti-pattern closed?
Show the answer
D. When a re-test of the control has been run and passes
The closing rule makes the record more than a note: the pattern is closed when a re-test passes, not when the remedy is merged. The chapter repeats the rule in its Summary.