Look at decisions as well as tasks
Task automation is a useful starting point, but it does not describe the whole operating model. Consider who makes decisions, what information they use, what authority they hold and how their choices affect other teams.
An AI-supported task can change the speed, sequence or volume of those decisions. Work that once passed through a familiar review may need a different form of oversight. Those consequences belong in the design.
Redesign the hand-offs
A hand-off transfers more than a task. It can transfer context, responsibility and the evidence needed to continue the work. Make clear what the receiving person or system needs, and who is accountable if the hand-off is incomplete.
This can reveal where a process depends on informal knowledge or on someone interpreting information that was never explicitly captured. The aim is a flow that people can understand and manage.
Keep governance close to execution
Operating-model design and governance are closely connected. A control is useful when people can understand when it applies, how to use it and what decision follows.
Design review and escalation into the workflow itself. Distinguish between work that can proceed within agreed boundaries and situations that need judgement or authorisation. These are operating choices, not simply documentation tasks.
Connect purpose with execution
SOMA—Suggested Operating Model Architecture—separates what the enterprise must be able to do from who or what performs the work. It makes allocation explicit, governed and revisable, with policy, identity and delegated authority constraining the whole flow.
- Define the capability and its business purpose.
- Understand the work class and the particular case.
- Select an eligible execution pattern through the Work Allocator.
- Make roles and authority explicit in execution.
- Use outcome evidence to revise future choices.
Make the model useful to the people doing the work
An operating model needs to help people make decisions. Its usefulness depends on whether a team can explain how work moves, what it owns and where to turn when something changes.
Keep the model connected to practical situations. Use the questions and exceptions from delivery to examine the design and make deliberate adjustments. The work, its governance and the capability supporting it should evolve together.
