Start with one decision, not a policy slogan

A customer asks an AI agent assigned to service requests to change a delivery address. The answer may sound straightforward, but the business needs to decide who may request the change, whether the order can still be changed, and what evidence confirms that it happened. Governance becomes useful when those questions have an owner and a testable answer.

This planning worksheet helps an operations buyer prepare that conversation. It is an illustrative approach, not a certification or a statement that a particular deployment satisfies your obligations.

Write a decision brief your team can review

Choose one workflow and complete these fields with the people responsible for the process:

  • Outcome: What should be different when the work is complete?
  • Information: Which records may the worker read, and which fields are unnecessary?
  • Actions: What may it do directly, prepare for approval, or never do?
  • Human owner: Who accepts exceptions, and what happens outside their coverage hours?
  • Evidence: What record will show the request, decision, action and result?

For the address-change example, the AI agent might prepare a proposed change after collecting an order reference. Your team still needs to define identity checks, fulfilment cutoffs and when a person must approve it. A conversational confirmation is not evidence that the order system accepted the change.

Test the boundary as well as the routine request

Include an unauthorized request, missing information, a conflicting record and an unavailable reviewer. Ask the implementation team to demonstrate the actual response for each case. Record whether the worker stopped, requested clarification or handed the work over, and whether the intended person accepted it.

Keep proposed policy separate from observed behavior. A configured approval rule is one piece of evidence; a test showing that a disallowed action did not execute is another. Review both before extending the workflow.

Agree the review record

Use one row per test: scenario, expected action, observed action, supporting record, unresolved issue and owner. Set acceptance criteria before running the pilot so a fluent conversation cannot substitute for the required outcome.

Ask how access, retention, deletion and reviewer permissions apply to those records. Bring unresolved requirements to the appropriate internal owner rather than treating a product activity log as a complete governance answer.

Connect the worksheet to your evaluation

Explore workflow design and enterprise access and oversight, then bring a completed decision brief to a platform discussion. Ask which controls and evidence are available in the proposed deployment and which require integration or operating procedures.

For broader background, the NIST AI RMF Playbook provides voluntary guidance organized around Govern, Map, Measure and Manage. This worksheet is a Voxistry editorial planning aid; it does not claim NIST approval or certification.