Pilot-to-Contract Planner

Free tool by AAJ - plan a pilot backwards from the buyer's budget date, so a pilot that works becomes a contract

A pilot can go well and still end without a contract: the results arrive after the buyer has set next year's budget, nobody agreed in writing what success means, or the person who signs was never in the room. This tool plans the pilot around those three risks before it starts. It runs in the browser, and a draft is kept only in that browser.

Use the tool at aajconsult.com/tools/pilot-to-contract-planner.

What it checks

The dates. From the kickoff date and pilot length, the tool dates a mid-point review, the pilot end, a results readout, the buyer's decision and a signature target. It warns when the readout or decision lands after the buyer's budget decision, or after the last date a yes can still be signed by the fiscal year start on your procurement estimate, and works back to the latest kickoff that still makes it.

The success criteria. Each criterion is checked for four things: measurable (a number and a stated way of counting it), baselined, owned by someone who will share the data, and agreed in writing. It flags a criterion that cannot move within the pilot, and more than 3 criteria.

The deal. It flags a missing economic buyer or champion, a free pilot with no conversion terms, terms that leave out the price, the start date or what happens if the criteria are met, and a pilot that already covers the whole rollout.

The result is a verdict (Re-plan the dates, Fix before kickoff, or Ready to propose) and the three fixes that matter most.

The method and its limits

Every date and estimate comes from you. Budget calendars differ by district, health system and company, so the tool never assumes one: for a US district, enter that district's own budget adoption date and fiscal year. The only defaults are planning defaults you can change: one week from pilot end to readout, two weeks from readout to decision, and the three-criteria flag. There are no conversion rates or "typical" pilot lengths in the tool.

In my view, a short pilot is good at producing usage data, feedback and, with a baseline, a before-and-after comparison. If a district asks about evidence levels under the Every Student Succeeds Act, read the primary sources: the Comprehensive Literacy State Development National Literacy Center's (U.S. Department of Education) Evidence-Based Practices fact sheet and REL Central's Requirements for Evidence of Effectiveness and Design Standards. The tool does not say which level a pilot reaches. Student data and patient data carry obligations of their own; start the buyer's privacy and security review before kickoff and check the legal consequences with counsel.

Take it to the buyer

Download the plan as Markdown (timeline, criteria, conversion terms and a sign-off block for the champion, the economic buyer and you) or as CSV for your tracker.

Run this in your agent

The free AAJ agent skill Pilot to Contract does this job inside a coding agent, on your own data. Install it with npx skills add sarojkjha/aaj-marketing-skills --skill pilot-to-contract.

Using Claude or ChatGPT instead? Add the AAJ engines as a custom connector, with no install: https://aaj-engines-mcp.sarojkjha10.workers.dev/mcp

Related resources

How to Sell EdTech to School Districts - The EdTech Marketing Calendar - EdTech Marketing Playbook - Pipeline Forecast Calculator - Launch Readiness Planner - Sales & Pipeline hub

Pilots keep ending without a contract?

If they do, I would look upstream first: which buyers you pick, who in the buying group decides, and when their money is set. See the Growth Audit.