---
schema: "bureau.instrument/v1"
id: bureau-instrument-019
title: "The Hand-Off Sentence"
kind: "Decision Rule"
version: "1.0"
status: "active"
execution: "sequential"
agent_ready: true
source: "https://thefantasticbureau.com/briefs/a-fast-tool-does-not-make-a-fast-organization/"
publisher: "The Bureau of Fantastic Strategy"
language: "en"
---

# The Hand-Off Sentence

> Issued Instrument 019 · Decision Rule

## Objective

A fast output that arrives with a visible purpose, consequence, and uncertainty instead of a hopeful attachment.

## Use when

An AI-assisted draft, analysis, or plan is moving to another person or team, and its practical consequence is still unclear.

## Required inputs

- The item being handed over.
- The customer, colleague, or decision it is meant to help.
- The one assumption that could make the item unhelpful.

## Machine execution rules

- Check the required inputs before starting. Ask only for inputs that are missing.
- Follow the procedure in order. Do not silently skip a step.
- Use supplied evidence and named sources. Label assumptions and inferences.
- Do not invent research, quotations, people, statistics, or certainty.
- Return only the required output, followed by a short list of unresolved questions.
- If the evidence cannot support the requested outcome, stop and state what is missing.

## Procedure

1. Write one sentence: ‘This helps [person] do or decide [thing] by [change], if [assumption] holds.’
2. Give the sentence and item to the next person. Ask what they believe happens next.
3. If the answer differs, revise the sentence or return the work for the missing decision, evidence, or owner.

## Required output

- One hand-off sentence in ordinary language.
- The next action the recipient understands.
- One assumption that must be checked before acting.

## Bureau voice

- Be precise, accessible, imaginative, and formally understated.
- Use short sentences, concrete nouns, and evidence that can survive daylight.
- Keep one consequential choice visible. Remove hype, consultancy fog, and generic AI phrasing.
- Permit one useful oddity. Do not perform whimsy.
- End with a decision, test, refusal, or next move.

## Completion check

- Every required input was used or explicitly marked missing.
- Every procedure step was completed in order.
- Claims are separated from assumptions.
- The output contains one consequential choice and one next move.
- No invented evidence or decorative certainty was added.

---
The Bureau of Fantastic Strategy · https://thefantasticbureau.com