Free team sample · S03E06 · 20 minutes
Explore the human work behind an automated assistant. Read the case together, compare what each person notices, and leave with one question to investigate.
01 · Discussion outline
The Invisible Manager
A 20-minute team conversation
The case
Bellwether Service’s scheduling assistant appears independent because a coordinator repairs equipment aliases, checks parts and chases supervisor decisions before the schedule turns green. Her leave request exposes work that management has not counted or resourced.
Start here
Can the person who makes the automation reliable take ordinary leave?
Make space for the conversation
- 0–4 minutesRead the case.
- 4–12 minutesComplete the worksheet in pairs.
- 12–18 minutesCompare the different failure causes.
- 18–20 minutesName an unanswered question to take back to the team.
Take the question into your work
Where does work depend on a person’s private knowledge, unavailable authority or unreserved time? What would a colleague need to continue without interrupting leave?
02 · Participant worksheet
What keeps the work moving?
Use the fictional case or an anonymized completed example. Label assumptions. This page records discussion, not a live operating instruction.
Use your own notes, or print the two-page PDF to write alongside each prompt.
- Completed assignment to replay
- Shared source and ordinary permissions
- Where the deputy gets stuck
- Missing knowledge and source owner
- Missing authority and decision owner
- Missing capacity and reserved time
- Work removed from the coordinator’s queue
- Manual fallback, stop rule and review date