Adding an agent changes what information must be available, who can authorize an action, how work moves between participants, and how a team recognizes a useful result. Agent Centered Design is a developing discipline for designing and improving that shared work.
Name the task, the receiving owner, permitted actions, and the decision that stays with a person.
Calm is on. Explore each step at your pace.
Agent Centered Design / Illustrative draft-and-review workflow.Read every step
Define participation. Name the task, the receiving owner, permitted actions, and the decision that stays with a person.
Supply context. Provide the sources, versions, constraints, and criteria that make the assignment actionable.
Prepare reviewable work. The agent returns a draft, its source basis, and unresolved questions rather than concealing gaps.
Accept or return. The receiving person reviews the result. Incomplete work returns with a clear recovery path.
Make the next decision visible
ACD draws on practical experience in innovation, engineering, and continuous improvement, with methods adapted to the conditions agents need to operate reliably. Tools such as the Human-Agent Alignment Map and Decision Thread help teams make responsibilities, context, decisions, and handoffs visible.
Consider an illustrative internal request that needs a draft response. “Handle this request” leaves the source, action boundary, and meaning of done unclear. A team leader can begin by naming the approved information, the permitted work, and the decision that remains with a person.
For a team handling internal requests, an applied review would clarify the approved policy, permit draft preparation, reserve sending for a person and define the evidence returned with the draft. Evaluate source correctness, visible uncertainty and whether the reviewer has enough information to decide.
Human-Agent Alignment Map
Use an operating map to make the participants, responsibilities, context, and handoffs visible. In the draft-response example, clarify what the agent prepares and where a person reviews the work.
Decision Thread
Connect the decision to its evidence, owner, work, and result. In the same example, retain why a draft was accepted or revised and what the team learned from the trial.
An ACD Opportunity-to-Outcome Pilot focuses on one team and workflow. Identify the sponsor, workflow owner, trial participants, permitted source material, and a useful improvement to test.
Return an operating map defining inputs, permitted actions, expected outputs, responsibilities, and when a question goes to a person.
Keep a Decision Thread connecting the evidence, chosen experiment, accountable owner, and next decision.
Agree a baseline, desired outcome, possible harm, and operating burden to review before the team runs a trial.
Return experiment findings, an outcome review, and a handoff with unresolved gaps and a decision to continue, revise, or stop.
Scope, materials, timing, and facilitator capacity are confirmed in a proposal. Implementation beyond the pilot is separately scoped. A tailored workshop or training program can also provide applied exercises and usable work products for your team.
Field Notes explores questions about records, work and evidence. Read the methods and limitations alongside each observation. Research remains accessible without buying an engagement.
The Agent Centered Design field guide is in development. Follow the research and book updates through the research list. For current reading, start with Field Notes; a published edition is not offered here.
Choose the relationship that fits your work. Learning the method, delivering it to clients, continuing internal practice, and retrieving references each need a clear scope.
Practice with your team
Discuss applied exercises using permitted examples, inspect the work products together, and agree what to practice next. A program should have clear learning objectives and human review.
The developing consultancy pathway combines a bounded first client engagement, licensed method assets, and agreed support. Training and client-delivery authorization are separate decisions.
The proposed corporate subscription supports current instruments, updates, persistent improvement records, and agreed support. Continued use and client-record export should be clear from the initial proposal.
ACD Knowledge Access would provide a curated, versioned, read-only reference collection through MCP, with attribution and evidence limits. Access begins with qualification and a pilot discussion.
No certification or accreditation is offered by this page. Training completion, assessed competence, and licensed client delivery are distinct. An applied engagement focuses on the work your team can practice and review.
Does a workshop license the whole method?
A proposal identifies actual materials and permitted use. A workshop or knowledge-access subscription does not automatically grant consulting-delivery or redistribution rights. Reproduction and facilitator rights require specific terms.
Register sponsorship interest separately from a training or licensing inquiry. Select sponsorship as a research interest in the form below; support arrangements would be discussed separately.
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Research updates are separate from a commercial inquiry. Choose the interests that fit you.
