A hat is a set of decisions, not a job title. Six hats, one name each, put on people already doing the closest thing. Nothing is added to the org chart, and no agent goes on it.
I would fill this sheet alone in an afternoon. Then I would ask each person named to confirm their own row in writing within the week.
At a roundtable in October 2025, I said too many teams treat AI as a science project. It needs product ownership instead. This sheet is what that looks like on one page.
| Rule | What it means |
|---|---|
| Hats, not departments | Every duty here is added to an existing job. Nobody is hired for it. My judgment |
| One name per hat | Two names is a committee waiting to happen. Zero names is how most failures start |
| Whoever ships, owns | Whoever merges, publishes or sends an AI generated change answers for it as if they made it by hand. The tool owns nothing. Who did this: Ramp, several thousand people, puts agent written pull requests under the engineer's own account (C13) |
Company size: {{number}} people. Path: {{Start or Fix}}. Designers today: {{number}}. Sheet owner: {{name}}. Review date: {{date, three months from now}}.
The six hats are rows in the Hats database below, with what each one owns and decides already filled in. Usual wearer and hours are my judgment. Change the names, not the hats.
| Hat | Decides | Usual wearer | Hours a week |
|---|---|---|---|
| Way of working owner | Any change to a production step. Who wears which hat | You: founder, CTO, Head of Product, COO. Never a delegate | Two, more in the first 90 days |
| Tool owner | Whether a tool comes in or stays. Keeps the inventory | A senior engineer, or whoever runs the software bill | One to two |
| Rules owner | Data sources, agent access, exceptions. Keeps the one page policy | Engineering lead, or the founder at 25 people | One to two |
| Experience quality owner | Whether AI generated UI or copy is fit to ship | A designer if there is one, otherwise the PM, never an engineer | Two to four, including 75 to 100 minutes of weekly sample |
| Practice champion | Nothing. Runs the demo slot and keeps shared prompts tidy. Optional below about 50 people | Whoever others already ask | One, plus the demo slot |
| Customer contact owner | Whether an AI reply reaches a customer unread, and how it is labeled. Not words on screens | Support lead, or whoever answers most support today. One name for the 90 days | One to two |
Not hats: an AI lead or AI team, because it pulls the work out of the teams that do it (my judgment). Reviewer of record, because it is a rule that moves with the work.
| Your size | Heads wearing hats | Hats per head, at most | Note |
|---|---|---|---|
| About 25 | Three: founder or CTO, the PM, one support person | Three | Tool owner and rules owner are one person, beyond the 90 days too. About eight to eleven hours a week in all |
| About 80 | Five or six | Two | Tool owner and rules owner are separate from here on |
| About 150 to 200 | Six, plus one team contact per team for rules and for experience quality | One, except the way of working owner, who may also hold rules | Team contacts apply decisions and carry exceptions back. They do not meet to decide |
What each head stops doing to make room: {{name}}: {{one line}}. {{name}}: {{one line}}. {{name}}: {{one line}}.
At 25 people with no designer, my judgment: the PM stops building low lane UI. The engineers take it, so the PM reviews work they did not make.
Consulted means asked before, with a date; silence by that date means the decider decides. Informed means told after, in writing, where people already read. No row creates a meeting. My judgment.
| Decision | Decides (hat) | Name | Consulted | Answer within | Informed, where |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| A new AI tool comes in, paid or free | Tool owner | {{name}} | Rules owner if it touches customer data, code or credentials | Two working days | {{weekly note or channel}} |
| A data source goes into an AI tool | Rules owner | {{name}} | Tool owner, whoever handles that data | Five working days | {{where}} |
| An agent gets write access to a system | Rules owner | {{name}} | Tool owner, the engineer running the agent | Three working days | {{where}} |
| AI generated UI ships to customers | Experience quality owner for the high lane; whoever merges for the low lane | {{name}} | PM on whether it should exist, engineer on how it is built | Before merge | {{where}} |
| An AI reply reaches a customer unread | Customer contact owner | {{name}} | Experience quality owner, rules owner | {{days}} | {{where}} |
| A production step changes | Way of working owner | {{name}} | The hat owners and team it touches | {{days}} | {{where}} |
| An exception to a rule | Rules owner, logged with an end date | {{name}} | Whoever asked | {{days}} | {{exceptions log link}} |
| Something AI generated broke | The person who shipped it fixes it and writes three lines: what happened, what the tool did, what changes | The person who shipped it | Tool owner, rules owner, experience quality owner if a user saw it | Same day | {{where}} |
With data you would publish anyway, any tool may be used at once and goes on the inventory the same week. The tool owner's answer is needed before internal or customer data touches it (part 03).
Fill the middle column honestly before the right one. Most rows will not change. If more than three differ, pick three for this quarter.
| Decision | Who decides today, in practice | Who decides from {{date}} | Changes? |
|---|---|---|---|
| A new AI tool comes in | {{name, or "whoever expenses it"}} | {{name}} | {{yes or no}} |
| A data source goes into an AI tool | {{name, or "nobody"}} | {{name}} | {{yes or no}} |
| An agent gets write access | {{name, or "whoever sets it up"}} | {{name}} | {{yes or no}} |
| AI generated UI ships | {{name, or "whoever merges"}} | {{name}} | {{yes or no}} |
| An AI reply reaches a customer unread | {{name, or "the tool"}} | {{name}} | {{yes or no}} |
| A production step changes | {{name}} | {{name}} | {{yes or no}} |
The three things that change: {{one}}, {{two}}, {{three}}. What stays the same for everyone else: {{one sentence}}.