People and automation
Every step carries one automation level. The level says who does the work and who decides. It is set for each step on its own, because automation arrives one step at a time.
Automation levels
| Level | Who does the work | Who decides |
|---|---|---|
manual | People do the work. | People decide. |
assisted | An agent drafts or gathers. | A person decides and acts. |
supervised | An agent does the work. | A person approves the result before it moves on. |
autonomous | An agent does the work. | Nobody is in the loop, and the record is the check. |
never | People do the work, permanently. | People decide. |
never is permanently human. It marks a step that stays with a person however capable agents become, because a regulator, a contract, a customer relationship or an act that cannot be undone requires it. No setting, override or timeout can move it. Only a new version of the process, made by its owner, can.
Three kinds of human handoff
A person's step
Some steps are done by a person, such as collecting a laptop, signing a contract or calling a customer. The record names the person who did the step and when.
A supervised approval
An agent does the work and a named person approves the result before it moves on. A message nobody answers, or a timer that runs out, never counts as an approval.
What passes between steps
Each handoff says what one step leaves for the next and what it has to contain. Whoever picks up the work, person or agent, knows what to expect.
Versioned changes
Raising a step's level is an amendment to the process. It gets the next version number and an effective date, and every run records the version it ran under. A year later anyone can see when a step moved from a person to an agent, who made the change, and how the runs went on either side of it.
manual→assisted→supervised→autonomousnever