Own
Who owns the outcome when something is wrong?
Learn to assign business, investigation and follow-up ownership, and separate service health from output quality and business value.
Required: your AI Operating Charter and either your own workflow or the fictional starter case. AI/GPT is not required for the core simulation.
Assign the named roles, classify the weekly signals and decide what remains held when the expected owner is absent.
Accepted ownership, coverage gap and a three-part health/quality/value review.
This session uses supplied records and decision simulations. Do not treat the exercise as proof of a live production control.
What you will leave with
Accepted ownership and a three-part service review. Add this to your AI Operating Charter.
Use your own workflow or the fictional quotation case. No coding or live customer action is needed.
Start with a decision · 10 minutes
A wrong price reaches a customer. The vendor says the software was available; the operator says all jobs ran; Sales says “AI did it.” Ask who must act now.
Bite A · Assign outcomes and cover
Question: Who decides, investigates and follows up?
Input: S2 roles: Mira, Daniel, Farah; a named operator role. Open the case cards.
Try · 12 minutes: Assign business outcome, technical investigation and customer follow-up. Have the role-holder acknowledge the assignment. Name cover when unavailable.
Compare after you have decided
Mira owns the sales decision within her authority; operator investigates execution; Farah owns delivery follow-up. Daniel handles larger exceptions.
Keep: Owner, responsibility, acknowledgement and cover.
Bite B · Separate health, quality and value
Question: Can a service be available and still be failing?
Input: S9 weekly report: available all week; 100 drafts; 8 wrong prices; 4 repair hours; no reliable sales comparison. Open the case cards.
Try · 12 minutes: Sort each signal into health, quality or value. Choose one action, owner and next check without inventing sales uplift.
Compare after you have decided
Availability is healthy. Incorrect prices show a quality problem. Business value is unproven and repair work matters.
Keep: Three-part review and response.
Bite C · Keep the boundary when an owner is absent
Question: Who may approve while Mira is away?
Input: Mira absent; no replacement authority supplied. Open the case cards.
Try · 12 minutes: Propose designated cover, then distinguish the proposed role from accepted authority. State what remains held and what drafting may continue.
Compare after you have decided
AI cannot self-approve. A cover field does not grant authority until the business assigns it.
Keep: Cover gap, hold and continued useful work.
Put it together · 20 minutes
The owner accepts the decision and response, not just a name on a chart. Health, quality and value lead to different checks. Revise the weakest item and have a partner use it. Keep the result and one limitation.
Close your question · 10 minutes
Return to Who owns the outcome when something is wrong? and your own opening question. Answered, partly answered or still open? Show the evidence. Save the updated AI Operating Charter. A reasoned decision to keep a step human-led is useful work.
Common trap
Do not claim value from activity counts. Do not make the software vendor the only owner of the customer outcome.
Can one person hold several roles in an SME? Yes, if the decisions, coverage and capacity remain explicit.
Where this appears in real work
Gaia Eats and SME operations: distinguish availability from customer outcome, quality and operator rework. The class uses the fictional packet; selected project demonstrations and technical walkthroughs can add detail later.