---
id: "action-create-delegation-map"
type: "action-item"
source_timestamps: ["§ Implications for Leaders"]
tags: ["product-design", "workflow-architecture"]
related: ["concept-delegation-map"]
action: "Map customer workflows to define automated steps, human interventions, and non-negotiable checkpoints."
outcome: "Control over demand shaping, risk exposure, and unit economics, preventing third-party agents from setting defaults."
speakers: ["Mark J. Greeven", "Fabrice Beaulieu", "Wei Wei"]
sources: ["geo"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-geo"
originDay: 3
articleStem: "hbr-ext-15-china-ai-agents-commerce"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/04/research-what-chinas-ai-agents-reveal-about-the-future-of-commerce"
sourceTitle: "Research: What China’s AI Agents Reveal About the Future of Commerce"
---
# Create a Delegation Map

## Action
Map the **entire customer workflow** to explicitly define:
- which decisions can be safely moved to **autopilot**,
- which decisions require **human intervention**,
- where **non-negotiable checkpoints** must exist.

Treat this as a strategic **product architecture** choice — not an IT feature. This operationalizes [[concept-delegation-map]] (strategic move #2 in [[framework-strategic-implications-leaders]]).

## Outcome
Control over **demand shaping, risk exposure, and unit economics** — and prevention of the failure mode in [[quote-designing-defaults]], where third-party agents set your defaults for you.

> Enrichment: frame this as a workflow-control problem (permissions, escalation thresholds, reversibility), tightly coupled to [[action-implement-transaction-governance]].