Case Studies and Anti-Patterns · AI Boss: the course

All courses / AI Boss / Module 7 / Chapter 31

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

Analyse a documented case by functions, degree as recorded and as observed, what was missing and the rule it yields.
Classify the twelve anti-patterns into the four families and name the controls that prevent each family.
Explain how anti-patterns feed each other, using the examples the chapter gives.
Review an organisation against the anti-pattern checklist and give each red finding an owner, remedy and re-test date.

Key concepts

Anti-pattern: A reasonable-looking solution that repeatedly produces the same harm. The chapter's twelve are latent conditions with measurable signals, each accumulating unseen until a person pays for it.
Degree as observed: The degree of delegation at which a system runs in practice, often higher than the one recorded. Level 4 by accident (AP-10) is the case where a consequence has no named human decider.
Four families: Delegation unrecorded; oversight in name only; people measured as machines; and voice and craft lost. Each family has the cases that illustrate it and the controls of the book that prevent it.
Signals, not opinions: The checklist holds a signal and a red condition for each anti-pattern, answered from records. A signal that cannot be answered from a record is also red.
Composite case: An illustrative case of an invented organisation that combines patterns from earlier chapters: the benchmark agent, the silent release, and the roster that went well because the controls existed before the pressure.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Interactive exercise 1 · Match

Cases and their rules

Match each case from Chapter 31 with the rule the chapter draws from it.

Interactive exercise 2 · Scenario

A signal with no record

Apply the chapter's practical guide for reviewing an organisation against the anti-pattern checklist to the situation below.

Teaching plan

10 min	The teacher explains the frame used for every case: functions and degree, what happened, what was missing and the rule.
25 min	Case clinic: groups take two documented cases each and present them in the frame, stating the recorded and the observed degree and reading out the rule.
15 min	Presentation of the twelve anti-patterns in four families and how they feed each other; participants place the three composite cases.
30 min	Exercise: groups run the checklist against an organisation and write up the red findings.
10 min	Debrief: which anti-patterns Nordvik Region and Hansa Mutual found and remedied, and which they avoided.

Discussion

In most of the cases the harm sat where a system built for direction or evaluation came to carry a consequence without anyone deciding it. Why is that movement so hard to see from inside the organisation?
A manager measured against the system stops departing from it, which produces the rubber stamp. Which other anti-patterns do you see feeding each other in practice?
Composite C avoided all four families because the controls existed before the pressure. What makes it difficult for an organisation to invest in controls before anything has gone wrong?

Written exercise

Exercise · 30 minutes

Review against the anti-pattern checklist

Review one organisation's AI boss against the twelve anti-patterns: your own, or Nordvik Region or Hansa Mutual at a point in the year of Chapter 30. Fix the scope to the systems and features in use over the last two quarters. For each anti-pattern, AP-01 to AP-12, state the signal you would look for and the record that would answer it. Mark each red if the signal meets its condition or cannot be answered from a record, amber for a near-miss already remedied, green otherwise. For each red finding write the remedy from the book, an owner who is not the subject of the finding and a re-test date. Report at team level only.

Deliverable: A checklist table of twelve rows with signal, source record and colour, and for each red finding a remedy, owner and re-test date.

Your work

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

Which movement do the eight documented cases share, according to the chapter's summary?
Show the answer
B. A system built for M1 Direction or M2 Evaluation came to carry M3 Consequence without anyone deciding that it should
In each case the record, the decision right or the contest path that would have shown the movement was missing. M4 Development and M5 Care appear as the slow harms in the composite cases.
In Composite B, the silent release, what did a routine release of the workforce suite enable by default?
Show the answer
D. Offering extra hours first to staff with the highest acceptance history
Part-time staff with caring duties then received fewer offers. The rule the chapter draws is that a vendor release that changes who gets work is a new delegation, not an update.
To which family does the chapter assign the rubber-stamp approval (AP-02), the manager measured against the system (AP-08) and the explanation nobody can read (AP-11)?
Show the answer
A. Oversight in name only
The family's controls are the oversight record and seeded cases. Delegation unrecorded holds AP-01, AP-05, AP-10 and AP-12; people measured as machines AP-03 and AP-07; voice and craft lost AP-04, AP-06 and AP-09.