The forward-deployed engineering lead at AI-agent company Varick identifies missing process maps, isolated optimization, absent baselines, and unclear operational ownership as reasons pilots fail. His example is that saving eight minutes reading onboarding documents does little if cross-team waiting still leaves a 22-day process. He recommends working inside existing systems, handling exceptions, measuring cycle time, cost, and errors before deployment, and planning post-pilot budgets and model changes. His claim of reducing the process to four or five days is a reported case, not an independently verified general effect.