Readiness areas
Four areas to make evidence-ready
For each area, identify the evidence, accountable role, and unresolved questions before recommending a bounded pilot.
Knowledge sources
List the approved source set, its owner and review date, and how outdated or duplicate material will be handled.
Access scope
Document the intended audience and verify whether retrieval follows each reader’s existing source permissions.
Evaluation cases
Prepare answerable, ambiguous, outdated-source, and out-of-scope questions with expected behavior.
Support and monitoring
Assign roles for user questions, incorrect answers, source changes, access concerns, and review of pilot feedback.
Prepare in this order
-
Bound the use case
Record the intended audience and task, included sources, exclusions, and examples of questions the assistant should not answer. -
Inventory and verify sources
Record each source owner and review practice. Check that intended material is current, approved for this use, and distinct from excluded content. -
Confirm access boundaries
Ask the platform or access owner to verify the actual audience and retrieval behavior against source permissions. Record unresolved access questions rather than assuming controls. -
Run representative evaluation cases
Compare answers with approved source material. Include an out-of-scope question and check that the assistant declines or directs the user to an established channel. -
Agree support and monitoring ownership
Assign roles for user support, source corrections, access concerns, and feedback review. Set a review cadence and escalation route through established organizational channels. -
Make a documented pilot recommendation
Summarize evidence, open questions, audience, boundaries, and proposed review cadence for accountable decision-makers. This is guidance, not a workflow or approval.
Readiness reference matrix
Illustrative planning example only. This authored reference is not a live checklist, work queue, or approval record.
| Area | Practical check | Example evidence | Accountable role |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge sources | Is each included source approved for this use, current, and owned? | Northstar example: the Operations Knowledge Owner confirms the current edition of the Operations Team Handbook before evaluation. | Knowledge-source owner |
| Access scope | Can only the intended audience use the assistant, and does retrieval respect source permissions? | A written audience definition and the platform owner’s explanation of the actual retrieval boundary. | Access or platform owner |
| Evaluation cases | Does the assistant answer from the approved source and stay within scope? | Worked example: ask where the handbook explains equipment requests; check that the answer cites the approved, current handbook. Then ask about a topic outside that source scope and check that the assistant declines rather than inventing an answer. | Evaluation lead |
| Support and monitoring | Who receives feedback, coordinates corrections, and reviews patterns during the pilot? | Role ownership, an agreed review cadence, and established organizational channels for support and escalation. | Support and monitoring owner |
Role-based handoffs
Assistant owner
Keeps the use case, audience, boundaries, and pilot recommendation coherent.
Department: Accountable owner
Knowledge-source owner
Confirms source approval, currency, scope, and how corrections or outdated content are handled.
Department: Source stewardship
Access or platform owner
Verifies the actual audience, retrieval behavior, and access boundaries with the relevant platform team.
Department: Platform and access
Evaluation lead
Maintains representative test questions, compares outputs with approved sources, and records observed gaps.
Department: Evaluation
Support and monitoring owner
Coordinates user feedback, issue triage, source-correction handoffs, and the agreed review cadence.
Department: Support and monitoring