Worksheet: The Tool vs Teammate Map

Every piece of work you might hand to an agent sits somewhere on a spectrum from Tool to Teammate.

At position 1 the human supplies all the judgment. At position 4 the agent supplies most of it, inside a boundary the humans designed. H is the honest fifth answer: some calls are never delegated, and knowing which ones is executive work.

Placement criteria

Score the work, not the technology. Four questions place any item:

Low discretion, easy reversal, small blast radius, real oversight: the item can sit further right than it does today. High discretion or a wide blast radius does not mean never delegate. It means the move requires a boundary or a human gate, and you must be able to name it.

Place the Grand Inflation work

For each item, mark where it operates today (1 to 4, or H), where it could responsibly move, and exactly what boundary or human gate the move requires. The third column is the real work; the first two are just coordinates.

Argue about these. The arguments are the exercise. A table filled in silence is a table filled in wrong.

Now your organization

Same map, your work. Pick eight real items from your own operation. Include at least one you suspect is a 1 that could be a 3, and at least one that everyone assumes is delegable but is actually an H.

The closing question

Of your eight, which single move returns the most hours or protects the most revenue? Circle it. That item, with its named gate, is the seed of your first agent at home.