I hand off the gathering, not the judgement

The question I get asked most often isn’t “what can it do”. It’s: “So what goes away for us?”

For a long time I had no honest answer. By now I’ve drawn one from my own work, and the line runs surprisingly cleanly.

What I’ve handed off is the gathering. What came in overnight, which deadline is due this week, where something looks different since yesterday. Everything that’s pure transport of information: fetching something from where it lives and putting it somewhere I can read it.

What I haven’t handed off is the judgement. What of it is true, what follows from it, and who I call first.

In an inside sales team the same line looks like this. “Where’s my order?” To answer that today, someone checks the ERP, digs through the email thread, asks production and calls the carrier. Four stops for an answer that already exists somewhere. That searching can go.

Whether the customer calling for the third time about the same part is quietly looking elsewhere, though, no system will tell you. Someone hears that on the phone, or they don’t.

And yes, I prefer that to any number I could quote here. The part you’re worried about is exactly the part nobody hands off.

Where would you draw the line? What can someone gather for you, and what do you want to decide yourself?