3.2 The first 10 percent: intent, scope, authority, review contract

In everyday life. Before a teenager takes the family car, you say where they may go and when to be back. You also say that they must text if plans change, and that they may never drive after midnight.

The first 10 percent is everything the worker must know before it starts, because you will not be there while it works. It has four parts.

1. Intent. The outcome you want and why it matters. "Reconcile Midwest Packaging's September statement so the close can be signed on Monday" tells the worker what "done" means. "Reconcile the statement" does not.
2. Scope. What is in, what is out, and which inputs to use. Which vendor, which period, which version of the register, and which policy.
3. Authority. What the worker may do on its own in this task. A Role Contract sets the most a worker may ever do. A task often needs less. Dave's contract let the worker update register rows. A reconciliation must change nothing, so the brief has to say so.
4. Review contract. How you will know the work is right, agreed before it starts.

The Review Contract is the acceptance criteria set before delegation: what is checked, what evidence comes back, what counts as success, and what stops the worker. In practice it answers five questions: those four, and what must never happen automatically.

Two things in the first 10 percent are easy to miss. The first is the stop rule. Without one, a worker that cannot explain a gap tends to close it anyway, by "adjusting" a figure. The second is the evidence. If you do not ask for it now, you cannot check it later, and the final 10 percent turns into redoing the work.

Chapter 5 teaches you to write the intent, scope and authority as the Four-Part Brief: outcome, format, inputs and autonomy. Chapter 6 teaches the Review Contract in depth, and Chapter 7 teaches the Authority Envelope. This chapter shows where they fit in the rhythm.