A well-scoped, technically exciting AI initiative. Compliance blockers we'd have hit at integration. A recommendation to terminate, before a single sprint was burned.
A healthcare client asked us to scope an AI system that would aggregate patient-level data across provider networks to surface care-gap opportunities. Leadership was bullish. Engineering had a clear architecture. The pilot would have hit $1M in commitments before the first integration sprint.
My job in discovery was to de-risk, not to cheerlead.
The data sources the system needed contained PHI and PII that couldn't leave the originating networks without BAA renegotiation, a 6-to-12 month legal path with uncertain outcome. Even with data in place, the ROI model broke: projected uplift on care-gap closure priced against operating cost fell below the break-even line in every scenario I could build.
The uncomfortable finding: the product could ship. It could be demo'd. It could not be sold sustainably, and it could not be operated without creating compliance exposure that outweighed any upside.
I wrote a one-page kill memo: the compliance blockers, the ROI model with every scenario I'd run, and the recommendation stated plainly, no alternative scope or workaround, because none existed once the legal path and the unit economics both failed. I presented it to the steering group expecting pushback. I got questions, good ones, and then a decision to terminate. The team rotated onto a parallel initiative that shipped three months later.
"ROI outweighs novelty. Demos don't ship; defensible economics do."
This is the case study I'm most proud of. Anyone can ship features. Not everyone will recommend against shipping when the org has already imagined the launch.
Compliance isn't a Phase 2 problem. In regulated domains, the legal path determines the critical path. Validate BAAs, DPAs, and data-residency before you validate the feature.
ROI modeling is a PM deliverable. If you can't draw the unit economics in discovery, you can't defend them in executive review.
The kill memo is a PM artifact. A crisp, written recommendation against shipping is one of the hardest and most valuable things a PM produces.
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