Visibility of intermediate steps supports timely intervention

What it is

An open window is not enough. Intermediate steps have to be fine enough that a person can judge “should this beat be allowed to continue.” Seeing the current object is what lets them stop before the wrong mail goes, rather than after ten have gone. Intermediate visibility enables intervention is the use of visibility: putting the abort on the right beat.

Without steps, abort can only stop the whole show. That is not timely. It is giving up.

Why it happens

Timely intervention has two premises: the person knows which beat this is, and the beat has not yet crossed a world boundary. Intermediate steps cut execution into moments that can be aimed at; the person maps “the recipient is wrong” onto the “about to send” beat, and abort then means something. Seeing only “running,” they aim at the whole task, and what they press is abandon, not trim. The difference from observability: observability asks whether a window exists; this asks whether the window aims the intervention at a step. It has not yet reached the functional shift of “after-the-fact correction becomes in-process” — that moves the whole correction timeline forward; this only requires that an intervention can hit the correct beat.

Studying it

Place an error at step k in a long chain (about to go outward). Compare: running-only, steps without objects, steps with objects. Dependent variables: whether people stop before k, whether they harm already-correct steps when they stop, time from seeing the error to pressing. Independent variables: step grain, whether the object is visible, whether abort hits the current step or the whole show.

Success is “stopped before the crossing,” not “the task did not finish.” Unfinished with ten mails already out is not timely.

Where it stops holding

If steps are so dense people cannot follow, visibility degrades into a log and timeliness disappears — density is a later problem. If the person has no abort right, seeing does not intervene; restore execution first. That a finale cannot even locate which step failed is another failure mode of visibility. This entry only asks: when steps are visible, can intervention aim at that beat.

Applying it

• Segment the process view by the act about to happen; give visual weight to the beat about to go outward, and guarantee abort lands before that beat.
• Abort defaults to stopping current and after; already-complete steps should not be wiped by this press. Timely intervention is a trim, not a burn.
• Check: put a wrong recipient on mail k. The person should stop before k goes, and correct mails before k should still be there. If they always act only after the whole show ends, steps have not yet aimed the intervention.

Related

• Same group: L4.08.1 An agent's execution process must be observable · L4.08.3 A final result alone cannot locate the problem
• Nearby: L4.12 Task Progress and Intermediate-state Visibility · L4.05 Interruptibility and Rollback · L4.07 Pre-action Confirmation
• Search terms: intervention · intermediate steps · supervisory control