====================================================================== GOVERN & PROVE THE WHOLE OPERATION AI for Your Business — Intermediate, Chapters 9–11 ====================================================================== Each function has its own fence. This is the layer ABOVE them — the way you govern the whole, run it to a weekly rhythm, and prove, on evidence, that it holds without you. ====================================================================== 1. THE GOVERNANCE ONE-PAGER (Chapter 9) ====================================================================== THE POLICY THAT BINDS EVERY FUNCTION AT ONCE (a new function inherits these or it doesn't launch): • AI never states a policy, price, or fact that isn't in the brain. • AI never moves money or admits fault without a person. • Every customer-facing AI is labelled as AI where it matters. • Every function keeps its escalation triggers and its fallback. THE KILL SWITCH (the answer to "who can stop it"): For each function — how it's switched off fast (revert to that function's manual fallback), and WHO may pull it. Give that person real authority: they stop a function the moment it's visibly misbehaving, with no meeting and no sign-off, and are never second-guessed for stopping it in good faith. (Stopping is reversible. A wave of damage isn't.) Function ____________ off-switch ____________ holder ____________ Function ____________ off-switch ____________ holder ____________ A WATCH ON THE WHOLE (not "keep an eye out" — an actual control): Governance owner (watches the pattern ACROSS functions): ______________ One cross-function log every function drops a signal into, on a beat: - each function's signal + its MAX interval (customer-facing = daily, slower = weekly), so nothing hides for a month; - a rough "look now" threshold (spike / run of the same odd output / number off its range); - the route when one trips: governance owner → the function's kill-switch holder → (if customers affected) that function's remediation plan. DATA & LIABILITY: A fixed quarterly date to confirm the business-tier settings are still right and the approved tools are still the ones being used: __ / __ / __ You are responsible for what your AI tells your customers, whatever your jurisdiction. Put a professional (solicitor / insurer) on the real legal questions. Never let AI have the last word on anything you carry the can for. (Name the risk; don't take legal advice from a template.) THE CASCADE DRILL (rehearse it — a policy you haven't tested is fiction). Pick a failure that SPREADS: e.g. the service AI, after an update, starts telling clients a deadline that's wrong — and the pipeline repeats it in quotes, and it lands in account notes as if true. Run the clock as a team and answer honestly: - Who notices first, and after how long? - Through how many functions has it travelled by then? - Who has authority to stop ALL of them — do they use it or hesitate? - Which customers already have it in writing; who calls them, by when? Close every gap it exposes: authority to stop any function on sight, a shared place signals land, a "wrong information out" plan. ====================================================================== 2. THE WEEKLY OPERATING CADENCE (Chapter 10) ====================================================================== One short, standing weekly meeting — same day, same time, 30 minutes, standing — that reads the operation's instruments and acts. Not a status meeting; a pulse. Fixed slot: ______________ Chair (hand to a senior now and then): ______ Running order (each owner reports their own — you mostly listen): [ ] Each function, its ONE number (gate pass-rate / SLA / recovery / critical-miss count / open items on the register). A number off its range is the reason to be in the room. [ ] The cross-function catch (the pipeline owner says "heavy week coming"; service staffs up BEFORE the queue backs up). [ ] Brain & rules kept current (a new "never", a spec change, a fix from an exception log — ratified and folded into the brain). [ ] The register, chased (every open decision: done / on track / stuck; stuck ones get an owner + date on the spot). THE RULE that keeps it from decaying into a status meeting: nothing that's off leaves the room without a DISPOSITION — a named owner, one action, a date — on the same register, chased next week until closed. ====================================================================== 3. THE OWNER-ABSENT VERIFICATION (Chapter 11) — the proof ====================================================================== The only honest test of "it runs without me" is to leave — and to check the EVIDENCE, not your gut, when you're back. Reassurance ("all good?") isn't proof; a trail is. STEP 1 — WRITE THE EXAM BEFORE YOU GO (so you can't grade to what you find): Set a bar PER FUNCTION — they differ — not one bar for all (at least 3): Function Sample size Pass bar (its standard) A critical miss is _______________ _________ ____________________ _________________ _______________ _________ ____________________ _________________ _______________ _________ ____________________ _________________ THE RULE (every function): one with a critical miss, or a control left uncovered while you were away, does NOT pass — it gets fixed and re-run. STEP 2 — GO GENUINELY DARK for a set window (a week if you can, a few days minimum). No cc, no check-in. Tell the team it's a proof, not a trap, and to keep the trail. STEP 3 — AUDIT ON THE EVIDENCE when you're back (five checks): [ ] Sampled output vs the spec — pull the sample you pre-set; does it pass the written test? [ ] Usage, not lip service — did they run the loops, or quietly revert? (brain markers / gate records / tool usage) [ ] Gate compliance — what got HELD: escalations fired, drafts sent back, refusals routed to a person. [ ] The exception & register trail — oddities caught, cross-function log flagged, the cadence chased in your absence. [ ] The numbers — each function's measure vs the range you'd marked normal. STEP 4 — ADD THE TEAM'S ACCOUNT as ONE input, not the verdict. Where it disagrees with the trail, the trail wins. STEP 5 — READ IT STRAIGHT. Functions clearing the bar you set = your proof; bank it. A function that drifted or had a control off = a diagnosis, not a defeat: name it, fix the gap, and re-run that one. ePORTS — your ecom source. eports.global