•5 min
Why Evaluation Frameworks Fail
Most teams treat evaluation as a checkbox. Here's why it should be your product.
# Why Evaluation Frameworks Fail
Most teams treat evaluation as a checkbox—something to add after the AI is "working." This is backwards.
## The Problem
When evaluation is an afterthought, you get:
- **Metrics that don't matter**: Tracking what's easy to measure, not what matters
- **Tests that don't catch issues**: Surface-level checks that miss real problems
- **Frameworks that don't scale**: Manual processes that break under load
## The Solution
Evaluation should be your product. Not a side project, not a nice-to-have—your actual product.
This means:
1. **Design for testability from day one**: If you can't test it, you can't trust it
2. **Make evaluation continuous**: Not a phase, but a practice
3. **Treat eval data as product data**: It tells you what's working and what's not
## The Shift
Stop asking "How do we test this?" Start asking "How do we make this testable?"
The difference is everything.
---
*Want to design evaluation into your architecture from the start? [Let's talk](/contact).*
Most teams treat evaluation as a checkbox—something to add after the AI is "working." This is backwards.
## The Problem
When evaluation is an afterthought, you get:
- **Metrics that don't matter**: Tracking what's easy to measure, not what matters
- **Tests that don't catch issues**: Surface-level checks that miss real problems
- **Frameworks that don't scale**: Manual processes that break under load
## The Solution
Evaluation should be your product. Not a side project, not a nice-to-have—your actual product.
This means:
1. **Design for testability from day one**: If you can't test it, you can't trust it
2. **Make evaluation continuous**: Not a phase, but a practice
3. **Treat eval data as product data**: It tells you what's working and what's not
## The Shift
Stop asking "How do we test this?" Start asking "How do we make this testable?"
The difference is everything.
---
*Want to design evaluation into your architecture from the start? [Let's talk](/contact).*