The Rerun Test
Five questions that tell you whether the transformation deck on your desk learned anything from the last one.
Run it against one deck, in one sitting, before money moves. Score each question 0 (no), 1 (partially), 2 (yes, with a name attached). The test ends in a word you can say in the meeting.
1The closing report
Can anyone in the room state, in numbers, what the last transformation was promised and what it delivered — the original deck’s targets against what happened?
If no: you are about to run an experiment you already ran, minus its findings.
2The named workflow
Does the plan name a specific end-to-end workflow that will run differently by a specific date — with the person who owns its cycle time? ("Claims triage, ninety minutes to nine, owned by Priya, by March" is a name. "Empower teams to reimagine work" is not.)
The strongest predictor in the test. A deck with no named workflow has planned procurement and usage only.
3The enthusiast filter
Do the pilot results include a team that did not volunteer? Pilots staffed by enthusiasts measure enthusiasm — tool access was never the constraint; the sceptical middle was.
A pass is a pilot that includes the team that didn’t want it.
4The hour trail
When the tools free up time, where does the plan say those hours go — who redirects them, into what? Freed time with no destination becomes invisible slack while the dashboard stays green.
A pass names the mechanism, not the aspiration.
5The kill criteria
Does the plan state, in advance, what result would stop, shrink or redirect the programme — and the date that check happens? A programme that cannot fail by its own definition cannot succeed by it either.
A pass is a date and a number.
Verdict
—
Answer all five questions.
8–10 · new picture — fund it. 4–7 · remake — send it back for the missing names. 0–3 · rerun — decline to pay twice for the same lesson.
One boundary, honestly: this test cannot tell you whether AI will transform your industry. It can only tell you whether this deck would transform your company — which is the question you are actually being asked to fund.
The Rerun Test · Peak State Global · peakstate.global — from the Rerun Test essay. Print this page for the one-page card (the verdict box travels with it).
Bring us the deck as it stands
Scored it and landed on rerun or remake? That is the useful outcome. A 30-minute conversation about the specific zeros — the named workflow, the hour trail, the kill criteria — is where the remake starts.
The Rerun Test is one instrument in the Peak State field kit — essays on the leader's job as it is shifting, and the tools that go with them.
All essays and instruments →