PS-SUP-081 · r2 SUPERVISION OBSERVED ENGAGED · ONGOING

INTERVENTION TIMING

It stops being possible before it starts being warranted.

01 DEFINITION

Condition in which the interval during which a supervisor can still alter an automated sequence and the interval in which there is enough to justify altering it do not overlap, so acting in time means acting on less than would support the decision afterwards.

02 CONDITIONS

UNCERTAINTY MISSING What would justify intervening is not present while intervening is still possible.

TIME PRESSURE SHORT The two intervals are both brief and they do not overlap.

ERROR ASYMMETRY ASYMMETRIC Moving early and moving too late are answered for by different people in different rooms.

OPERATOR STATE SUPERVISORY The person is watching something proceed that they did not start and may have to stop.

03 WHERE IT APPEARS

MEDICALAn automated infusion can still be stopped well before there is enough to say it should have been.

FINANCEAn automated order can be pulled only while there is least reason to pull it.

ENERGYA protection sequence passes the point of interruption before the operator has grounds to interrupt.

MOBILITYAn assisted manoeuvre can be overridden early and is justifiable to override late.

LOGISTICSA dispatch commitment becomes irreversible before the information that would question it arrives.

AI EXP.An automated action taken on a person's behalf can be recalled only before its result is visible.

04 WHAT AEON WORKED THROUGH HERE

The point at which the sequence could still be altered arrived before the point at which anyone could say it ought to be. Supervisors who waited for certainty were supervising something already done, and those who did not were explaining afterwards why they had moved early. The work went into what the surface can put in front of them at the earlier moment rather than the later one, and into which part of the sequence is worth holding open to buy that time.

The question it keeps returning to is what a supervisor is answerable for having known — measured against what was available at the moment of acting the early intervention is sound, and measured against what came out later it is the one that has to be explained.

05 LINKED TERMS

PS-CLS-027 CLASSING UNDER TIME LIMIT PS-CLS-029 BOUNDARY CASE ESCALATION PS-PRI-045 USED NOW IS GONE LATER PS-SUP-077 DELEGATION BOUNDARY PS-SUP-087 DELEGATED ACTION AUDIT PS-SUP-088 STOP AUTHORITY CLARITY PS-TRU-106 TRUST CALIBRATION PS-REC-123 CASCADING FAULT ISOLATION PS-REC-125 FIRST ACTION UNDER ALARM PS-INP-156 SAFEGUARD WINDOW COST PS-SUP-185 AUTHORITY WITHOUT SITUATION PS-TRU-211 WARNING BESIDE THE BUTTON