Coordinate and act
Closed-loop callouts
Echo a handoff back out loud, so every transfer of work is acknowledged and owned.
Borrowed from professional kitchens, and the closed-loop communication taught in health care by the TeamSTEPPS program. Read the original source.
Ongoing habit · Minutes to start · Anyone on the team can start it · Start here for this problem
Try this first
On important handoffs, the receiver says back what they have taken on.
Use it when
Handoffs drop and it's unclear who acted on what.
Skip it when
Save it for handoffs that matter. Echo every trivial exchange and it becomes noise people stop hearing.
How to introduce it
Confirm handoffs out loud. Someone passes work or an instruction, the receiver says it back: heard, I am doing X. Now the handoff has landed and everyone knows who owns it. With AI it means saying I have acted on the model's output for X, out loud, rather than silently.
How to show up
Set the habit for handoffs that matter and model it. Keep it natural rather than robotic, so it becomes rhythm instead of ceremony.
How long it takes
A minute to introduce. It lives in daily work.
What makes it hard
It feels unnatural at first and gets dropped when people are busy, so keep modeling it. The failure to watch for is the silent handoff where everyone assumes someone else picked it up.
What it looks like when it's working
Handoffs get acknowledged and owned, and work stops falling through the gaps between people, or between a person and the model. Silent handoffs and dropped work mean it has not taken.
How long until it sticks
A couple of weeks before the echo-back feels natural.
How you know it stuck
Acknowledging a handoff out loud is how the team passes work, including to and from the model.
The idea behind it
An unacknowledged handoff can drop without anyone noticing. Saying it back closes the gap where work and ownership disappear.
Where it comes from
Professional kitchens. Closed-loop confirmation on handoffs. The aviation read-back with a kitchen accent, so "I acted on the AI's output" is always acknowledged and owned. When the expediter calls a ticket, stations echo it back: "Heard!" / "Yes, chef!". Standard cues ("behind," "corner," "hot") prevent collisions.