saas-agent-implementation-timeline

name	saas-agent-implementation-timeline
description	Use when producing or reviewing the saas agent implementation timeline component of a business plan; applies its specialist evidence, decisions, and acceptance tests instead of neighbouring pipeline skills.
metadata	{"portable":true,"compatible_with":["claude-code","codex"]}

SaaS Agent Implementation Timeline Skill

Overview

Generic implementation timeline (handled by 13-implementation-timeline) covers milestones, dependencies, critical path. Agent implementation must additionally encode the shadow -> supervised -> agentic progression as the dominant scaffolding, with eval-coverage gates, cost gates, drill gates, and AI Safety Lead sign-off at each transition.

Use When

• Section 13 is being built for an agent-product plan
• A new agent capability is being launched
• An autonomy promotion is being planned
• A vertical / customer-specific rollout is being scheduled
• The plan must pass meta-agent-bankability-and-investor-readiness

Do Not Use When

• The product is AI-feature only without agentic action — use generic 13-implementation-timeline
• The agent is internal-efficiency only with no customer-facing action class progression — use generic implementation timeline
• The plan is pre-PMF with no operational evidence — use directional ladder and milestones, but do not over-engineer the gate model

Required Inputs

• Agent capability scope
• Customer segment(s)
• Action class taxonomy (A/B/C/D)
• Eval-coverage baseline
• HITL capacity
• Drill cadence
• Reserve adequacy

Workflow

1. Define the rollout phases per agent capability:

   • Phase 0 — Shadow — agent runs in parallel with human; human acts; agent output recorded but not used; eval data accrued
   • Phase 1 — Supervised (Class A/B) — agent acts on Class A / B actions; human reviews before commit on B
   • Phase 2 — Supervised (Class C) — agent acts on Class C; human approves above threshold; audit-log mandatory
   • Phase 3 — Agentic within policy — agent acts within policy on B/C; human reviews exceptionally; Class D requires human-final
   • Phase 4 — Expanded autonomy — additional Class C / D action types promoted

2. Set gates between phases:

   • Eval-coverage on the action class >=95%
   • Sample size in current phase (typically 5k-20k actions)
   • Incident-free duration (typically 90 days no sev-1)
   • AI Safety Lead sign-off
   • Drill executed for the new phase
   • Reserve adequacy confirmed
   • Customer notification / consent

3. Cost-gated launch — each phase has target cost-per-resolved-task; do not promote if cost trending above target.

4. HITL ramp-down — as supervised -> agentic, HITL reviewer capacity required falls; redeploy reviewers to higher-stake action classes or to eval / quality.

5. Customer-by-customer rollout — typically pilot with 1-3 design partners through Phase 1; expand through Phase 2; broaden through Phase 3.

6. Multi-country / multi-language rollout — sequence by regulatory readiness and language coverage; do not skip countries' regulator engagement.

7. Build the implementation Gantt — phases x customer segments x time; identify the critical path.

8. Risk-tag the critical path — which gates are most likely to slip; what's the contingency?

9. Wire to living-plan governance — monthly review of phase progress; quarterly autonomy expansion review with AI Safety Lead sign-off.

Quality Bar

• Shadow -> supervised -> agentic phases declared per capability
• Eval-coverage / sample-size / incident-free / drill / reserve / consent gates explicit
• Cost-per-resolved-task target per phase
• HITL ramp-down schedule
• Customer rollout sequence
• Multi-country sequence by regulator readiness
• Critical path identified with risk tags
• Living-plan cadence assigned

Anti-Patterns

• Skipping shadow phase
• Going from supervised to agentic without sample-size threshold
• Cost-target not part of gate
• Customer notification skipped on Class C/D promotion
• AI Safety Lead sign-off implicit not explicit
• HITL ramp-down without redeployment plan
• Multi-country rollout without per-country regulator engagement

Outputs

• Phased rollout per capability
• Gates with criteria per phase
• Cost-target per phase
• HITL ramp-down schedule
• Customer rollout sequence
• Implementation Gantt
• Critical path with risk tags

Living-Plan Cadence Defaults

Element	Cadence	Owner
Phase progress review	monthly	Head of Agent + AI Safety Lead
Eval-coverage by phase	monthly	Eval Engineer
Cost-per-resolved by phase	weekly	CFO + Head of Agent
Drill cadence by phase	monthly	AI Safety Lead
Autonomy expansion review	quarterly	AI Safety Lead + Head of Agent + CEO
Customer rollout review	monthly	Head of CS
Regulator engagement per country	quarterly	Compliance

References

• skills/13-implementation-timeline/SKILL.md — parent
• skills/03-products-services/saas-agent-product-strategy-and-roadmap/SKILL.md — roadmap input
• skills/12-risk-analysis/saas-agent-risk-and-stress-test/SKILL.md — risk input
• skills/10-financial-projections/saas-agent-unit-economics-and-cogs/SKILL.md — cost gate
• book-extractions/agent-products-business-plan-audit-2026.md — audit

Africa / Uganda Application Notes

• Multi-country sequencing in Africa: each country has its own regulator (ODPC / NDPC / NITA-U / Info Reg / NCSA / PDPC / NTRA) plus sectoral regulators; sequence countries by regulator-engagement maturity, not by market size
• Channel rollout — WhatsApp / USSD / SMS / IVR per country; rollout per channel has its own ramp
• Local-language rollout — sequence languages by user volume and eval-coverage readiness
• Public-sector pilots — typically slower than commercial; budget 6-18 months from MoU to first production
• Sovereign-AI procurement — adds 3-12 months for residency / local-entity / local-citizen evidence

July 2026 Portable Contract

Required Inputs

Input artefact	Source/provider	Required	Behaviour when absent
Approved initiatives, dependencies, procurement lead times, owners, costs, milestones, and funding availability for saas agent implementation timeline	Section owners, operations plan, financial model, and implementation lead	Yes	If absent, a dependency, owner, lead time, or funding release date is unavailable, keep the activity unscheduled or show a range and identify the decision date.
Finalised business brief, target reader, country, and stage	Client intake and engagement owner	Yes	Stop section decisions and route the missing context to client intake.
Reconciled upstream assumptions that this section consumes	Named pipeline owners	Conditional	Record the dependency, affected claim, owner, and recovery step; do not substitute an invented value.

Outputs

Artefact	Consumer	Observable acceptance condition
Dependency-aware implementation schedule with gates, owners, costs, and recovery actions	Plan author and target decision-maker	The artefact answers the section decision and traces each material conclusion to the supplied evidence.
saas agent implementation timeline exception and handoff note	Downstream section owners	Every blocked or conditional item names its consequence, owner, evidence request, and restart condition.
saas agent implementation timeline release record	Reviewer or plan assembler	Records the checks completed, failures, unassessed items, professional review required, and release state.

Evidence Produced

Evidence	Format	Acceptance condition
Critical-path map, milestone acceptance tests, resource reconciliation, and delay scenario	Source-linked table, calculation, or annotated prose	The evidence is reproducible from named inputs and distinguishes verified fact, management assumption, and inference.
saas agent implementation timeline decision record	Decision note	States the selected action, rejected credible alternative, countercase, rationale, and risk accepted or avoided.
saas agent implementation timeline review trace	Gate entry	Identifies the date, input versions, reviewer role, failed checks, recovery owner, and any check that remains not assessed.

Capability and Permission Boundaries

For saas agent implementation timeline, the controlling focus is agent prototype, evaluation, tool permissions, pilot, human fallback, production gate, and scale dependencies. This skill may plan and review delivery sequencing; it may not procure, assign people, change live operations, or declare milestones complete without owner evidence. Its normal mode is read-only analysis and drafting. Any mutation, external communication, spending, certification, or professional conclusion outside that boundary requires explicit authority and must remain traceable to the approving role.

Degraded Mode

For saas agent implementation timeline, loss of evidence about agent prototype, evaluation, tool permissions, pilot, human fallback, production gate, and scale dependencies activates degraded mode. If the controlling saas agent implementation timeline evidence is unavailable, the same boundary applies. When a dependency, owner, lead time, or funding release date is unavailable, keep the activity unscheduled or show a range and identify the decision date. Return the verified subset, label the affected decision qualified or not assessed, explain the downstream consequence, and state the smallest evidence request or authorised action that permits recovery. Do not convert the missing check into a pass.

Decision Rules

Choice or condition	Action	Failure or risk avoided
For saas agent implementation timeline, a milestone begins before its prerequisite, funding, procurement, or acceptance evidence exists	resequence it, expose the critical-path impact, and define the recovery option	Calendar dates disguise infeasible dependencies and unfunded work
For saas agent implementation timeline, A current legal, regulatory, tax, accounting, market, or platform claim controls the saas agent implementation timeline decision	Verify the controlling source, effective date, jurisdiction, and reviewer status before release	Stale external facts become permanent plan assumptions
For saas agent implementation timeline, The evidence reconciles with neighbouring sections and the countercase does not overturn the choice	Complete dependency-aware implementation schedule with gates, owners, costs, and recovery actions, attach the evidence and release record, and hand off named dependencies	Premature release and repeated downstream rework

Workflow

1. Define the exact saas agent implementation timeline decision, intended reader, jurisdiction, business stage, and permission boundary.
2. Collect approved initiatives, dependencies, procurement lead times, owners, costs, milestones, and funding availability and map each material conclusion to its source; stop the affected conclusion when an input could change it.
3. Apply the specialist methods and directly linked references already contained in this skill, retaining its domain thresholds, calculations, and Uganda or East Africa context where applicable.
4. Compare the credible alternatives, test the countercase and failure path, and apply the decision table rather than selecting a template default.
5. Produce dependency-aware implementation schedule with gates, owners, costs, and recovery actions with the evidence, exception, and handoff records; reconcile every shared assumption with its owning section.
6. Run the section quality checks, applicable finance or professional review, and anti-slop gate. If a gate fails, correct the evidence or decision and return to the responsible step.

Quality Standards

• Dependency-aware implementation schedule with gates, owners, costs, and recovery actions must answer a real decision for the named bank, investor, DFI, grant, board, or strategic-partner reader.
• Critical-path map, milestone acceptance tests, resource reconciliation, and delay scenario must be source-linked, dated where facts can change, and sufficient for another reviewer to reproduce the conclusion.
• The section exposes its countercase, stop condition, recovery action, and effect on neighbouring sections.
• No unavailable source, calculation, tool, or professional review is reported as passed; finance and statutory judgements follow the governing doctrine.
• Language remains specific to saas agent implementation timeline, uses British English naturally, and passes the repository anti-slop gate without promotional filler.

Anti-Patterns

• In saas agent implementation timeline, treating an unavailable approved initiatives, dependencies, procurement lead times, owners, costs, milestones, and funding availability as confirmed. Correction: qualify the affected conclusion and issue the named evidence request.
• Producing dependency-aware implementation schedule with gates, owners, costs, and recovery actions that restates the brief but makes no choice. Correction: record the choice, rejected alternative, rationale, countercase, and implication.
• Ignoring a conflicting upstream assumption. Correction: return it to its owning section and resume only from a reconciled version.
• Reporting an unavailable check as passed. Correction: mark it not assessed and narrow the release state.
• Claiming compliance, assurance, bankability, or investor readiness from narrative quality. Correction: run the applicable gate and retain its evidence.
• Copying the worked example into a client plan. Correction: use the method only and replace every fact with verified engagement evidence.

Worked Example

An agent pilot is scheduled before tool-permission review and failure-set evaluation. Sequence sandbox integration, evaluation, human-approval rehearsal, limited pilot, and production gate; show rollback ownership if the evaluation slips.

References

• Use the verified project evidence register and the owning upstream pipeline section for saas agent implementation timeline; no local deep-dive reference is declared.
• For saas agent implementation timeline claims involving money, tax, grants, reserves, revenue, cost, valuation, or financial statements, apply the Chwezi finance doctrine and record the required professional-review state; illustrative figures never become client facts.