Objectives, Decisions, Actions, and Approvals
Which steps can be automated safely, and where must the agent stop and hand control to a person? Map objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals separately so authority is never implied by the ability to generate a plausible next step.
What You Will Be Able to Decide
- Explain objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals in product and business terms.
- Apply this decision: Map objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals separately so authority is never implied by the ability to generate a plausible next step.
- Recognise this material risk: an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action.
- Use this review: Run the triage workflow with missing data, an unsafe request, an unavailable tool, and an item that needs escalation.
A founder or operator is deciding how an AI agent should participate in a real workflow without inheriting undefined authority. This lesson gives you a concrete question to take into a build brief, proposal review, or product decision.
Which steps can be automated safely, and where must the agent stop and hand control to a person? The course example is An agent that prepares a weekly customer support triage queue; use it to decide what evidence would justify the choice before a builder implements it.
What Does Objectives, Decisions, Actions, and Approvals Mean for Your Product?
A founder or operator is deciding how an AI agent should participate in a real workflow without inheriting undefined authority.
Use the illustrative service for this course (An agent that prepares a weekly customer support triage queue) to make the choice concrete. Which steps can be automated safely, and where must the agent stop and hand control to a person?
Technical term
Objectives, Decisions, Actions, and Approvals
An agent workflow separates the outcome being pursued from the judgements made, the actions available, and the approvals required before consequential work proceeds.
How Should a Founder Use Objectives, Decisions, Actions, and Approvals?
For an agent that prepares a weekly customer support triage queue, ask what would happen if an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action.
For this decision, the useful standard is that the agent behaves predictably across representative work, respects its boundaries, and produces evidence a responsible person can review.
- Decision: Map objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals separately so authority is never implied by the ability to generate a plausible next step.
- Evidence to request: show that the agent behaves predictably across representative work, respects its boundaries, and produces evidence a responsible person can review.
- Owner: name who will respond if an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action.
- Record the result in the agent workflow specification, evaluation set, and operating record.
- Practical review: Run the triage workflow with missing data, an unsafe request, an unavailable tool, and an item that needs escalation.
How Do You Choose an Approach to Objectives, Decisions, Actions, and Approvals?
Which steps can be automated safely, and where must the agent stop and hand control to a person? Map objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals separately so authority is never implied by the ability to generate a plausible next step.
The risk is that an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action. Compare a simpler option with the proposed one, including who will operate either choice.
- Describe the user or business outcome that must be protected.
- Identify the most credible failure and its consequence.
- Compare the simplest adequate approach with one realistic alternative.
- Set a review point for when the decision may need to change.
What Evidence Should You Accept for Objectives, Decisions, Actions, and Approvals?
What Warning Signs Should You Look For?
- The proposal does not address this risk: an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action.
- Nobody can show whether the agent behaves predictably across representative work, respects its boundaries, and produces evidence a responsible person can review.
- The decision has no named owner or review point.
What Should You Ask a Consultant?
- What changes for the user if we choose this approach to objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals?
- How have we reduced or accepted this risk: an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action.
- Can you demonstrate that the agent behaves predictably across representative work, respects its boundaries, and produces evidence a responsible person can review?
- Who owns the result, and when will we reconsider it?
Key takeaway
Key Takeaway
Map objectives, decisions, actions, and approvals separately so authority is never implied by the ability to generate a plausible next step. Ask for evidence against the specific risk: an agent treats a recommendation, draft, or available tool as permission to perform a consequential action.