SEE HOW THIS WORKS IN PRACTICE

What Narrow Agents, Digital Fitness, and Attention Residue look like on a real team — with steps, artefacts, and example outcomes.

What we actually do (at a glance)

Narrow Agents — bounded, auditable helpers for one job.
Digital Fitness — the minimum operating standard for tools and docs.
Attention Residue — patterns that cut context switching.

Below, you'll see each lever translated into steps, example specs, and before/after states. Targets shown are realistic working goals, not marketing claims.

Three real-world scenarios (mini caselets)

1) Scale-up Ops: product rollouts were stalling

  • Starting symptoms: duplicate work across Slack/Notion/Drive, unclear owners, late rollouts.
  • Interventions:
    • Narrow Agents: Ops Digest Agent (weekly summary to owners), Docs Filing Agent (auto-file to canonical folders).
    • Attention Residue: single rollout board, batched updates Tue/Thu 11:00, one owner per card.
    • Digital Fitness: naming conventions, decision log template, "one-pager per rollout".
  • Example outcomes (8–12 weeks): rollout lead-time −25–35%; duplicate tickets −60–70%; meeting time −20–30%.

2) Legacy utility team: Agile ceremonies, waterfall reality

  • Starting symptoms: Jira used as archive, handovers in email, ownership fuzzy.
  • Interventions:
    • Narrow Agents: Handover Checker (block handover without acceptance criteria), Retro Collector (batch insights to an action log).
    • Attention Residue: two swimlanes only (Now / Next), WIP limits, daily 9-min stand-up cap.
    • Digital Fitness: searchable docs, "Definition of Done" card, request intake form.
  • Example outcomes (6–10 weeks): rework −30–40%; cycle time −20–30%; "lost context" pings −40–50%.

3) Post-funding start-up: roles blurred after hiring sprint

  • Starting symptoms: owners change mid-stream, docs scattered, support queue spikes.
  • Interventions:
    • Narrow Agents: Queue Triage Agent (labels + routes by SLA), Decision Journal Agent (daily pull of key decisions).
    • Attention Residue: weekly batch windows for requests, "last responsible moment" rule, one inbox.
    • Digital Fitness: 5-rule hygiene (names, versions, locations, owners, status).
  • Example outcomes (4–8 weeks): first-response time −35–45%; misrouted tickets −60%+; "who owns this?" messages −70%.

Narrow Agents: quick specs you can run

Agent A — Ops Digest Agent (weekly)

  • Trigger: Fri 15:00 CET
  • Inputs: Project board, decisions log, release notes
  • Output: 1-page summary (done/next/risks), sent to owners + #ops
  • Guardrails: max 200 words; include owners + dates; link to sources
  • Audit: archive PDF to /Ops/Digests/YYYY-WW

Agent B — Docs Filing Agent (continuous)

  • Trigger: new file in /Uploads
  • Inputs: filename, uploader, tags
  • Output: move to canonical folder + apply naming convention
  • Guardrails: never delete; flag ambiguity for human review
  • Audit: CSV log (file, from, to, time, actor)

Agent C — Handover Checker (on status change)

  • Trigger: Card moves to "Ready for Handover"
  • Must have: owner, acceptance criteria, links to artefacts
  • Action: block move + comment checklist if fields missing
  • Audit: board comment + weekly compliance report

Attention Residue: design patterns that cut switching

One inbox per flow

All requests into a single, visible queue. No back-channeling.

Batch windows

Process classes of work at fixed times (e.g., Tue/Thu 11:00 updates).

Visible ownership

Name the owner on every card/doc; no "team" owners.

Two statuses that matter

Now / Next (everything else is backlog or done).

9-minute stand-ups

Three prompts: What moved? What's blocked? What changes today?

Quiet hours

Daily 90-minute no-ping blocks for deep work, per team.

Digital Fitness: the minimum operating standard

01 Naming

YYYY-MM-DD Project – Artefact – v1.2

02 Locations

One canonical folder per stream; no personal silos for shared work.

03 Decision log

Lightweight table: decision, date, owner, link, rationale.

04 Searchability

Front-load titles with nouns; add 3–5 tags; avoid screenshots of text.

05 Versions

Draft → Review → Final; lock final PDFs; archive drafts weekly.

06 Hygiene

Weekly 30-min cleanse: close stale tickets; re-file strays.

How we engage (deliverables you can hold)

Clarity Session (90 min)

  • Rapid system map + risk snapshot
  • Top 5 friction points (ranked impact)
  • Agent candidates + anti-residue patterns
  • Decision: stop / start / scale options

Mini Rebuild (2–4 weeks)

  • Implement 1–3 Narrow Agents
  • Roll out Digital Fitness baseline
  • Embed anti-residue patterns + cadences
  • Visual Clarity Blueprint + owner map

Quiet Retainer (light ongoing)

  • Monthly tune-ups + drift checks
  • Agent updates + guardrail reviews
  • Scorecard: throughput / rework / WIP
  • Quarterly "next lever" recommendations

Typical timeline

  1. Week 0: Clarity Session → decision + scope
  2. Week 1: Patterns first (inboxes, batch windows, ownership)
  3. Week 2: Digital Fitness baseline + artefact templates
  4. Weeks 2–3: Deploy first Narrow Agent(s) + audit logs
  5. Week 4: Review metrics; lock cadences; next lever

Risks & safeguards

Ready to see this on your system?

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