3.2 The first 10 percent: intent, scope, authority, review contract

In everyday life. Before a teenager takes the family car, you say where they may go and when to be back. You also say that they must text if plans change, and that they may never drive after midnight.

The first 10 percent is everything the worker must know before it starts, because you will not be there while it works. It has four parts.

1. Intent. The outcome you want and why it matters. "Reconcile Midwest Packaging's September statement so the close can be signed on Monday" tells the worker what "done" means. "Reconcile the statement" does not. (The close is the month-end paperwork that finishes and checks September's records.)

2. Scope. What is in, what is out, and which inputs to use (inputs are what the worker works from). Which vendor, which period (which month), which version of the register, and which policy.

3. Authority. What the worker may do on its own in this task. The worker's Role Contract (the one page that describes its job and its limits) sets the most the worker may ever do. One task often needs less. The brief (the written instructions for one task) can narrow the contract's authority, never widen it.

   Dave (the controller who runs Brightline's accounting) owns the worker's contract. The contract lets the worker update register rows, because building the register is its normal job. But a reconciliation must change nothing. So the brief has to say so: in this task, the worker may only recommend changes. The worker proposes each change, and Dave decides.

4. Review contract. How you will know the work is right, agreed before it starts.

With the teenager, where they may go is the scope, and when to be back is part of the intent. The text if plans change and the midnight rule belong to the review contract: when to stop and ask, and what must never happen.

The Review Contract is the acceptance criteria set before delegation: what is checked, what evidence comes back, what counts as success, and what stops the worker. In practice it answers five questions: those four, and what must never happen automatically.

(A source document is the document a line was taken from, such as the invoice itself. A credit is money the vendor takes off what Brightline owes, for example when goods arrive damaged.)

Chapter 5 teaches you to write the intent, scope and authority as the Four-Part Brief: outcome, format, inputs and autonomy. Chapter 6 teaches the Review Contract in depth, and Chapter 7 teaches the Authority Envelope (the written limit on what the worker may do). This chapter shows where they fit in the rhythm.