COORDINATION MECHANICS

THE RELAY RACE PICTURE Picture a relay race. One runner carries a baton for a stretch, then passes it to the next runner. The baton is small, clean, and exactly what the next runner needs. The first runner does not hand over her shoes, her water bottle, and a diary of everything she thought during the run. She hands over only the baton. Good coordination between agents works the same way. The main skill of this chapter is deciding what the baton is, and passing exactly that. HANDOFFS: TRANSFERRING CONTROL FULLY A handoff is the complete transfer of control from one agent to another, so that the receiving agent now owns the task or conversation and the sending agent steps out. Think of calling a company and being told, "Let me transfer you to billing." After the transfer, the first person is no longer on the call. The billing specialist is now fully in charge of helping you. In a harness, a handoff typically works like this. First, the current agent decides that the task belongs to someone else. Second, it produces a handoff, which names the receiving agent and passes along the needed information. Third, the harness stops the first agent's loop for this task and starts the second agent's loop with the information it was given. Fourth, from then on, the second agent talks to the user, uses its own tools, and makes its own decisions. Handoffs are best when the nature of the work has changed, so a different specialist should truly take over. An important detail is that the harness, not the agents, should enforce the transfer. The harness records who currently owns the task, so there is never confusion about who is in charge, and never two agents answering the same user at once.