Stratagems #4: P Walked Into an AI Monitoring POC. P Didn't Run a Single Test.

Same format as the rest of the stratagems series: a fictionalized workplace vignette mapped to a classical stratagem about exhausting an opponent without direct confrontation. Here the target is AI monitoring POC evaluations, and the story illustrates how a stakeholder can derail or steer an evaluation without doing any actual testing — just by controlling framing and timing. If you have ever watched a vendor POC get killed by someone who never opened the product, this will feel familiar. The observation is real even if the delivery is a little theatrical. The limitation is the same as the rest of the series: this is a three-paragraph insight stretched into a narrative, and the actionable surface area is thin. There is no tool here, no framework, no code. Treat it as a prompt for thinking about your next evaluation process, not a how-to. -> Best for: technical PM or SaaS founder selling into enterprises with lengthy evaluation cycles