3 Steps to Escaping Pilot Purgatory & Nailing Your Wearable Tech Pilot

Sanjay Jhawar Shares Real Insights on Turning Your Wearable Tech Pilot into a Successful Deployment

84% of Survey Respondents Say They’ve Been Stuck in Pilot Mode for More than a Year

When you are looking for new technology for your business, the first step is obviously to evaluate it internally. It may sound like a no-brainer, but to escape “pilot purgatory” (where all poorly designed pilots die a slow, meaningless death), you will need to ask yourself and your team the right questions up front.

In short, there are a number of common pitfalls to avoid.

EWTS editors caught up with RealWear’s Cofounder and Chief Product Officer Sanjay Jhawar.  Sanjay’s been busy visiting our Global 1000 customers and listening to their successes – and challenges – running enterprise wearable pilots.

Here are a few steps to take to avoid pilot purgatory.

Step 1 – Choose a viable use case

“The biggest pitfall is when there’s a customer [looking] for an AR wearable to solve a problem that may not exist. We’ve found that in the conservative world of industrial, pragmatic applications that provide value now as opposed to eye candy demos of AR are the way to go. When we get engaged with the operations, quality or training executive who owns the profit and loss for the specific problem, that’s when things go fast—solving for a specific pain point that yields measurable ROI. We need to be talking to the executive that owns a seven-figure dollar problem that they must address in under 6 months.” – Sanjay, RealWear

– Sanjay, RealWear

Step 2 – Determine Requirements

“[Our] type of customer, which is medium to heavy industrial, is very concerned about not violating any of their sacrosanct safety standards. We’ve also seen a heightened awareness in IT security.” “My biggest advice is to involve IT from the start, rather than hiding your project from IT in the hope that it will go faster…Try to understand and address IT’s objections as soon as possible, even if takes a few months, because when IT has weighed in as an internal stakeholder, you’ll have IT pulling for you. Remember that wearables are part of IT’s jurisdiction as it’s connected to the enterprise.” 

– Sanjay, RealWear

Step 3 – Wrap it up in 6 months or less

“Time. Kills. All. Pilots. The longer it takes, the more risks there are that something will happen: The budget goes away, a new shiny object steals the focus, an organizational change or your sponsor changes roles or jobs. If it takes more than six months, it’s almost not going to succeed by definition. A successful pilot should take three months. What we recommend is to have entry and exit criteria defined and agreed in writing up-front while designing your pilot.”

– Sanjay, RealWear

Sanjay has a lot more to say on the topic of deploying enterprise wearable tech. Read his complete interview with the EWTS team here.

Enterprise Wearable Technology Summit is where the biggest brands in the world unite to learn about the latest innovations in wearable technologies, augmented reality, and the solutions that deliver real-world results. Come to RealWear’s Booth 314 to try our HMT-1^® for yourself, and learn more about our work with Shell, BMW, GlobalFoundries, and more.

Also at EWTS 2019, Sanjay will deliver a presentation on September 17th, “Critical Success Factors for Achieving ROI through Deployment of Industrial Wearables.” This is a must-attend event for anyone interested in deploying industrial wearables in their company.

Learn more about Sanjay and his presentation at EWTS 2019 here.

Want to experience RealWear’s augmented reality headset before EWTS?