Iteration: 01
The Digital Assembly Line
What is The Digital Assembly Line (or DAL)?
The DAL coordinates agents to execute a process for a client.
— A Process is a set of instructions for executing digital tasks.
— Agents are the humans that build and execute these processes for Clients.
How does this actually work?
In this post I’ll explain its four (4) primary components.
1. Synthetic Intelligence
Clients interact with their Synthetic Intelligence (or SI) — a conversational chat bot which is operated by our agents. If clients want to do a phone or video call with their SI, they can delegate to our agents live, in real time.
Clients don’t interact with the DAL — it is invisible to them. The DAL is the back-end, where operations happen, and the SI is the front-end, where operations are delivered to the client, and delegation is received from the client.
We design an avatar to give your S.I. a fun, fictional persona. For example, our company’s S.I. is named Zeno Elea, after the ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician. And my personal S.I. is named Ambroseus, after the character in Arthurian legend.
This keeps the client experience simple. The client can interface with a single touch point for unlimited processes.
2. Processes
Again, a process is a set of instructions for executing digital tasks. Processes produce a clear outcome for a client — and have a well-defined start and finish. Clients pay per process to receive 25 hours of labor per month.
A. Architecture
Processes are organized by Capability. No matter what kind of process you delegate to us, it will fit nicely into our information architecture.
Suppose you have NBA season tickets to the San Francisco Warriors’ games, and you want us to sell tickets to games you can’t attend. Our taxonomy categorizes this as a process under Events, which is a capability under the Lifestyle set.
This matters because when you ask: “Can you do this?”, the answer is never “No, we’ve never seen anything like it.” As long as your request can be turned into a set of instructions to execute digital tasks, then the answer is going to be “Yes, this request makes sense, and it relates to our other processes.”
B. Components
Processes have both Work and Data components. Think about these as verbs and nouns. Work is the verb component, and data is the noun component.
This means we can both “do stuff for you” and “save and organize stuff for you.” Suppose you ask us to help you plan a vacation. We’ll save your ideas and your travel preferences as data; but we’ll also do the work of booking flights, scheduling the trip, making sure your colleagues have you covered, setting an Out Of Office message, etcetera.
C. Instances
An Instance is a single complete start-to-finish operation of a process.
Every instance has an Estimation: the time it takes an agent to complete it.
So, if an instance has an estimation of 1 hour, the client can run 25 instances of that process every month.
This gives the client visibility. You’ll know how much work is being done for you, for each process, over the course of the month.
D. Upgrades
Processes improve over time through Upgrades. We treat every process like a Product. It receives a Product Manager, Version Number, Changelog and Roadmap.
The more we execute a process, the more feedback we collect. Feedback comes in various forms, from both clients and agents. They send in Mistakes, Preferences, Requests and Ideas — each of which gets its own dashboard.
Mistakes are analyzed, fixed and logged, so we never make the same mistake twice — and can prove it. Preferences allow for customization on the client level — Cleopatra may not want scheduling done the same way that Julius does. Requests are new instructions to make a process more powerful, and ideas are not-yet-actionable but valuable thinking to inform future design decisions.
Over time, most of the feedback comes from agents — not from clients. Our kaizen culture upgrades forever. Because of our information architecture, we naturally discover opportunities to network processes together to achieve more and more impressive outcomes.
E. Cost Savings
Upgrades make processes better, faster and cheaper. When a process becomes more efficient, our margins improve—because it takes less time to execute. This benefits us. But this also benefits our clients, because it means there are more hours of operation available every month.
3. Books
Each process has just one book. The book contains its set of instructions. Instructions may be straightforward, or may include complex business logic: like loops, conditionals, and edge cases.
To upgrade the process, you have to upgrade its book. As books become more abstract, efficient and powerful, their format matures through the following structural evolution. These are the five types of books:
A. Rundowns
A Rundown is a simple, plaintext set of instructions that details exactly how the client’s request should be executed.
B. Taskbooks
A Taskbook goes through multiple versions, each version improving the efficiency and expansiveness of the process by adding, removing or updating steps, with new client preferences or operator suggestions.
C. Workbooks
A Workbook displays complex decision trees in a simple way through step nesting and sectioning.
D. Queuebooks
A Queuebook is a machine-readable process that is written on a Google Sheet. Our Automata technology turns these instructions into automated scripts for the SI to use in conversations with clients and agents. Throughout these conversations, the SI can store and retrieve variables, receive conditional inputs (option B, please!), and perform handoffs to other processes.
E. Playbooks
A Playbook is like a Queuebook in that it is machine-readable, but whereas a Queuebook is customized to a specific client, a Playbook’s logic has been abstracted to such a degree that it can support multiple clients on different teams, even at different companies.
Through a complex tree of conditionals and handoffs, Playbooks can produce results for each client based on their unique needs and preferences.
4. Agents
Agents fill a variety of roles on the DAL.
Operators execute processes. Rundowners and Builders design processes. Assigners, Balancers and Routers manage delegation and communications. And Reviewers and Managers provide quality control, training and coaching.
Let’s imagine these eight agent ranks as warriors on a battlefield:
A. Operators
Operators are the infantry, the ones on the frontlines. They’re the ones doing the actual work for clients and turning the instructions of a process into action.
B. Rundowners
Rundowners write rundowns, the first version of a process book, which we described above. They’re the ones mapping the territory and determining the initial layout of the battlefield — by scoping a process.
C. Builders
Builders are the tacticians, the ones determining the maneuvers to make on a specific battle front — a specific process. Builders turn the initial instructions of a rundown into a robust process.
D. Assigners
Assigners organize the infantry on the battlefield. Assigners determine what process an instance belongs to, and our Emissary technology assigns the instance to an available agent with experience in operating that process. They will often facilitate handoffs between agents running different processes.
E. Routers
Routers are the messengers that travel between the chain of command to relay information and respond to any general questions. A router is the client’s direct line of communication with their synthetic intelligence. They determine whether a message is a new request, an instance of an existing process, a preference, or something else.
F. Balancers
Balancers ensure that all fronts of the battlefield are adequately manned. Balancers delegate rundowns to operators to execute for the first time and to builders to upgrade.
G. Reviewers
Reviewers drill the infantry and provide feedback to the scouts and tacticians. Reviewers review the work of every single operator and give feedback to rundowners and builders on the processes that they build.
H. Managers
Managers are the generals overseeing the battle. Managers set the strategy for their team, ensure that every agent in their team is aligned and learning, and hold regular syncs with the agents in their teams.
With the Digital Assembly Line, a client can utilize thousands of human hours to accomplish hundreds of different processes, all through the ease of one touch point.
