Episode 3 — Live
Valuestream.
Where value actually flows.
A podcast from Rick Pollick on how modern companies turn strategy into shipped software — the operating systems, delivery practices, and agentic-AI patterns moving value from the roadmap to production. New episodes Monthly.
Episode 3Episode 3 · 23 min
The Agent Acts, You Answer
Governing the Agents You've Already Deployed
July 10, 2026
You've deployed the agents. They're writing code, working tickets, maybe reaching into billing. The question nobody wrote down is the one that matters now: what is each agent actually allowed to do, and who's accountable when it acts. This episode walks a five-move control model, capability envelopes, the trace, tiered human checkpoints, the ADR memory layer, and governance red teams, on one concrete scenario, plus the one move you can run on a single agent this week.
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The format
Three segments. One coherent show.
Every episode follows the same spine — so guests, teardowns, and solo pieces all feel like one show, and you always know what's next.
Segment
Intake
The problem or opportunity entering the stream — framing, signal, strategic intent.
Segment
Flow
How the work actually moves — operating model, platform, delivery practice, the agentic layer.
Segment
Outcome
What changed — shipped software, org behaviour, customer metrics, what we'd do differently.
Episode 3 — segment by segment
- Intake. The governance gap. Once agents act and chain decisions across your systems, "is this model accurate" stops being enough. The new question is what an agent is allowed to do, and who's accountable when it acts.
- Flow. A five-move control model: capability envelopes enforced at the infrastructure level, the trace, tiered human checkpoints scaled to blast radius, ADRs as the agent's memory of why, and governance red teams.
- Outcome. A model program runs the five moves in a quarter. ADR coverage 35% to 78%, agent-PR drift from ~62% to single digits, and the trace catches a near-miss before it ships. The question shifts from how many agents to which agents you can answer for.
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