3.5 Three scales: a task, a worker, a company

In everyday life. The rhythm has three parts: someone sets the work, someone does it, and someone checks it. A family does this at three sizes.

The chore, like one task. You ask a child to wash the dishes (the first 10 percent). The child does it (the middle 80). Then you check the kitchen (the final 10).
The babysitter, like a worker's whole working life. You agree the rules on the first day (the first 10 percent). The babysitter looks after the children for months of evenings (the middle 80). You check in with them regularly (the final 10).
The house rules, like company governance. The family sets them once (the first 10 percent). Everyone follows them (the middle 80). The family looks at them again each year (the final 10). Company governance means the rules a company sets for all its AI Workers.

The same rhythm repeats at three sizes. Only the time span changes, from minutes to years.

Scale	First 10 percent	Middle 80 percent	Final 10 percent
A task	The brief (intent, scope, authority) and the review contract	One run of the work	Evidence review, correction, approval of this output
A worker's lifecycle	The Role Contract: owner, authority, escalation, the evaluation cases it must pass before real work	Months of recurring work, inside its authority, stopping when its rules say so	Monthly review: KPIs checked, evaluations rerun, the contract updated, and the worker kept, changed or retired
Company governance	Policy: which work AI Workers may do, who owns each one, which actions always need a person, which knowledge is official	The AI Workforce works across functions	Audit: evidence trails read, incidents reviewed, workers expanded, restricted or retired

The rhythm at three scales, drawn as a grid. Rows are a task (minutes to hours), a worker (months) and a company (years). Columns are the first 10, middle 80 and final 10 percent. A dashed arrow runs from the final 10 column back to the first 10 column, labeled: what the final 10 learns becomes the next first 10, a better brief, a revised contract, a new policy.

Figure 3.2. The rhythm at three scales. Each final 10 percent feeds the next first 10 percent.

A worker's lifecycle. The AP Worker's whole working life follows the same rhythm. The first 10 percent is its Role Contract from Chapter 2. It names Dave as the owner. It also lists the cases the worker must pass before it does real work. The middle 80 percent is the months of work after that. Every Monday the worker builds the invoice register, and it drafts replies to vendor questions.

The final 10 percent is Dave's monthly review. He asks three questions. Are duplicate payments still at zero? Do the evaluation cases still pass? Does the contract still describe the job? A worker whose contract has not been reviewed in a year is running on an old first 10 percent. (The risk is that the contract slowly stops describing the job.)

Company governance. The whole company follows the same rhythm too. Here the first 10 percent is policy. The company's leaders set it, not each user. The policy says which work may go to AI Workers at all. It also says which actions always need a person, such as releasing a payment. The middle 80 percent is all the company's AI Workers doing their work.

The final 10 percent is audit. It only works if every worker left evidence behind. That is why the rhythm needs two governed layers under it. Chapter 4 introduces them. KSoR, the Knowledge System of Record, governs what an AI Worker may know. DSoR, the Data System of Record, governs what it may do and keeps the evidence.

Important

The human is the principal

This book's first edition has a chapter called the Thesis. It lists rules that never change, and it calls them invariants. Invariant 1 says: the human is the principal. The principal is the person in charge, the one the worker acts for. Every legitimate chain of action starts with a person who sets intent and owns the outcome.¹ In plain words, all proper work starts with a person who says what they want and answers for the result. The 10-80-10 rhythm is this rule in daily work.

3.5 Three scales: a task, a worker, a company

Check yourself

What is the first 10 percent of a worker's lifecycle?

Sources