1.4 Continuity, execution and persistence

In everyday life. Your family doctor is the same doctor for years, even though each visit happens in a different exam room. Your records are kept in a file the office can pull up any time. The doctor, the room and the file are three different things.

Products mix together three ideas that a manager must keep apart.

• Worker continuity is what makes a worker the same worker over time: its identity, its responsibilities, the context it keeps, and the recurring work it does.
• The execution environment is where one piece of work runs. It is often temporary.
• Artifact persistence is where results are saved, and how you get them back.

Each of the three can change without the other two. A standing worker does not need one computer to keep running forever. A temporary machine does not mean the worker forgets who it is. And a finished spreadsheet on a machine is not a saved spreadsheet until it is saved in a place where you can get it back.

Figure 1.3. Continuity, execution and persistence vary independently.

The third idea, artifact persistence, depends on where things are kept. One piece of work can touch three places:

The practical rule is short. Save anything you need later to a known place, and check that you can get it back. Know that place's retention and access rules. Maria's spreadsheet, in the chapter's opening story, failed this rule. Her summary survived because it was part of the conversation.

There is a second, deeper point. Durable is not the same as authoritative. Personal memory belongs to one login. A shared project belongs to a team. Neither is your company's official record of policy, and neither is the live state of the ledger. Chapter 4 adds two layers for that. KSoR (Knowledge System of Record) governs what an AI Worker may know. DSoR (Data System of Record) governs what it may do.