Core Jobs
The smallest complete unit of responsibility: one purpose, named outcomes, responsibilities, decision competence, one owner.
A job description lists activities. A Core Job describes what someone answers for, what they may decide and how you can see that it works. It hangs below an Anchor Core Job in one of the six letters, and it owes its accountability directly to governance. A person can hold several Core Jobs, and a Core Job can be held by several people.
What makes a Core Job complete
- A purpose in one or two sentences: why does this job exist, and why is it important?
- Outcomes: what reliably comes about when the job is done well. Results, not activities.
- Responsibilities: the recurring fields of action. Every Joblet pays into at least one of them.
- Decision competence: which Stone decisions the job makes and which competence has to be at Mastery level for that.
- Impact measurement: job metrics for the job as a whole, person metrics for the individual person, each with a purpose: steering or trend signal.
- Letter, Anchor Core Job and staffing, visible in the job register.
Multiple holders and owner
A Core Job such as "Cloud Consultant" is held by many people at the same time in a growing company. That is normal and intended: one job, one description, the same outcomes, the same metrics. Exactly one person is owner. They hold the further development of the role and the final word on the job, not on the people in it. Assessment happens in S, support in L. If only one person holds the job, they are automatically owner.
Creation and ratification
A new Core Job comes into being with governance: it is challenged and normatively ratified before it exists. The Steward of the letter holds the veto if the cut breaks their guardrails. This is the point where double ownership and orphaned topics surface before they create friction in everyday work. A Core Job can hand over a whole line of responsibility by turning it into a new Core Job; the responsibility then goes with it completely.
A and R
Whoever holds the Core Job holds A. Joblets hold R: they take on concrete tasks, the main responsibility stays with the Core Job. The Core Job chooses and replaces Joblets freely, governance is not involved in that. That way responsibility does not evaporate in delegation.
Decision competence and competence levels
Feather decisions every person makes themselves. Stone decisions are made by whoever holds the named competence at Mastery level; whoever is still building it decides together with the owner. The levels are in the skill matrix at M, ratified in S. Competence belongs to the person, responsibility belongs to the job, and decision space grows with demonstrated capability, not with years of service.
Impact measurement: steering or trend signal
Every metric has a purpose. Steering means it may feed into assessment and pay. Trend signal means it shows the state of the system and the corrections needed, and it never feeds into the assessment of a person. Whoever measures both at once and assesses on it gets exactly the behaviour the number rewards, and not what the company needs.
Common mistakes in the cut
- The job is a topic area without an outcome: then it is a field, not a Core Job.
- The job has outcomes but no decision competence: then it is a task list.
- Two jobs share the same accountability: then nobody decides in the end.
- The job is cut around a person and not around the work: then it fails at the next handover.