Episode 06
One Small Extra Thing
A small request becomes a large task, but Kentaro’s mandate never changes.
THE SITUATION
What happened
Kentaro is preparing a short update for a project review. Just before he finishes, someone asks for one small extra thing: add a comparison, check three regional exceptions, include the legal wording and make it ready for the board. Kentaro adds each piece because every request sounds connected to the original task. The short update becomes research, analysis, review and a new decision paper. At the meeting, the team wonders why it took so long. Kentaro points to the list of additions. The team says they were only minor. What changed was not the number of requests. It was the mandate, without anyone saying so.
THE WORK TENSION
What went wrong
Scope change often arrives disguised as a small addition. The request is not only longer; it can require new sources, different review, higher stakes and a different owner.
An agent that follows every addition literally may produce more work than the original mandate allowed. An agent that refuses needs a clear way to ask whether the work has changed.
THE PRINCIPLE
Renew the mandate when scope changes.
“An agent needs a renewed mandate when a small request changes the work.”
Define the original outcome, the boundaries of the task and the threshold at which added work needs a new owner, timeline or approval.
FROM STORY TO HARNESS
How Kentaro Harness reduces this friction
Kentaro Harness can keep the original mandate visible, compare a requested change against it and create a review point before the agent absorbs new work. That turns scope change into an explicit decision instead of a quiet accumulation.
Explore Kentaro Harness