The operating cycle
Define. Measure. Analyze. Improve. Control.
The method preserves the discipline of DMAIC while extending it for predictive, generative, retrieval, and agentic systems. Governance is not a final compliance step; it runs through every phase.
Define
Bound the outcome, process, owners, affected parties, and unacceptable harms.
Measure
Establish current performance, cost, variation, data quality, and control burden.
Analyze
Verify root causes and compare non-AI and AI options, architecture, economics, and risk.
Improve
Pilot the smallest controlled intervention with evaluation, limited release, and rollback.
Control
Monitor value, incidents, change, renewal conditions, and safe retirement.
Operating rules
What the method refuses to skip
Outcome before algorithm
Define the operating result and critical-to-quality measures before discussing models.
Baseline before benefit
No improvement claim is accepted without a current-state comparator and measurement method.
Least intelligence necessary
Prefer the simplest intervention that meets the requirement and control threshold.
System, not model
Evaluate people, workflow, data, interfaces, retrieval, prompts, tools, infrastructure, and controls.
Human oversight must be real
Reviewers need time, competence, evidence, authority, and a practical override path.
No-AI is a success state
The method may prove that process redesign, rules, search, data repair, or no action is preferable.
Decision gates
Every stage ends with an explicit choice.
A gate is not a ceremony. It records the evidence, owner, risk, conditions, next action, and events that would cause the work to pause or stop.
Problem and harm gate
Is there a bounded, measurable opportunity with an accountable owner?
Measure · Rescope · Hold · Stop
Evidence and baseline gate
Is the current state reproducible and sufficiently understood?
Analyze · Instrument first · Stop
Option and risk gate
Which intervention best addresses the verified causes?
Pilot · Simplify · Defer · No-go
Production decision gate
Did the pilot meet value, quality, control, and operating thresholds?
Scale · Revise once · Revert · Stop
Operational renewal gate
Does the capability still create value within risk tolerance?
Renew · Restrict · Remediate · Replace · Retire
Risk-scaled delivery
More consequence requires more independent evidence and stronger control.
Controlled support
- Representative task evaluation
- Privacy and security review
- Human review and escalation
- Monitored pilot and defined fallback
Restricted authority
- Strong presumption against broad autonomy
- Least privilege and transaction limits
- Independent evaluation and adversarial testing
- Kill switch and rehearsed rollback