Agentic systems are exciting because they promise end-to-end execution. The failure mode is also end-to-end: one wrong step compounds into expensive mistakes, especially when actions touch money, data, or customer trust.
We ask three questions before expanding autonomy: Is the task bounded? Is there a reversible checkpoint? Is there a human who can intervene quickly when confidence drops? If the answers are fuzzy, we narrow the scope.
Good workflow design mirrors operations reality: approvals where policy requires them, structured handoffs between tools, and explicit state so nothing guesses what happened last.
Automation should reduce toil, not hide responsibility. When teams know who owns exceptions and how the system signals them, they sleep better and customers get consistent outcomes.