US WORKING PAPER No. 2 · THE SHARED FLOOR
Name it. Place it. Bound it. Meter it. Teach it. Share it.
Humans, agents and autopilots work on one shared floor, not in separate, invisible rooms.
FIG 2 · SIX HABITS
HABIT 01
Name It
What is it, what is it for, and who owns it?
Every agent and autopilot is registered with a purpose, an owner, its data and its autonomy level. No owner, no launch.
HABIT 02
Place It
Where can I see it working?
Every agent appears in the organisation’s space: on the Wall, in its team’s zone, with its status.
HABIT 03
Bound It
What may it do on its own?
A written autonomy level (A0–A4), a data scope and the approval points.
HABIT 04
Meter It
What does it cost and what does it return?
A monthly budget, a usage view, an alert threshold and one value measure.
HABIT 05
Teach It
Do the people around it know how to work with it?
A learning path for builders, users and affected teams, with real hands-on hours.
HABIT 06
Share It
What have we learned?
A weekly show and tell, an open incident log and a monthly agent census, in the shared space.
FIG 3 · THE AUTONOMY LADDER
Autonomy is earned, not assumed
New agents start at A0 or A1. Moving up needs evidence and the owner’s sign-off. Anything touching money, customers, people decisions or regulated data needs a risk partner to agree a move to A3 or A4. Any incident can move an agent down straight away.
ROLES
Who does what
Agent owner
Purpose, behaviour, cost and retirement of one agent.
Agent boss
Directs agents day to day; checks outputs. TERM FROM MICROSOFT WTI 2025
Floor steward
Keeps the organisational space true to reality.
Learning lead
Paths, coaching and the Classroom.
Risk partner
Boundaries, A3/A4 approvals, incident reviews.
Meter partner
Budgets, alerts and the monthly cost view.
RITUALS
Short, regular, in the space
| Ritual | How often | Length | Output |
|---|---|---|---|
| Floor walk | Weekly | 15 min | Every agent’s status updated; one thing to fix |
| Show and tell | Weekly or fortnightly | 30 min | One win, one lesson, shared |
| Agent census | Monthly | 45 min | Registry matches reality; unowned agents flagged |
| Meter review | Monthly | 30 min | Spikes explained; seats reclaimed |
| Retire or renew | Quarterly | 60 min | Each agent kept, moved, merged or switched off |
Maturity: Scattered → Sanctioned → Shared → Steered
Most organisations start Scattered (personal tools, unknown agents). Sanctioned means approved tools and a policy, but private work. Shared means agents are visible and rituals run. Steered means autonomy, cost and learning decisions are made with data, in the open.
Lines up with the standards
NIST AI RMF (Govern, Map, Measure, Manage) maps to Name, Place, Meter and Bound/Share. ISO/IEC 42001 gets evidence from the habits and rituals. NIST AI RMF · ISO/IEC 42001