Nicholas Lipetzky The 64 Chart

Thirty-four jobs need no person. Sixteen of them run.

This is every job a company does, on one page: eight functions, eight squares each. Write down who does each one and whether it actually runs, and you can stop arguing about what to automate next. You can see which jobs still have a person on them only because nobody ever moved them.

How to read this. Eight rows, one per function, eight squares each. Every square is one job. A grey square is held by a person on purpose. A filled square runs without one. An outlined square is a job that could run without a person and does not. A dotted square is a job the company does not do at all. Hover or tap any square to read it.

Today's picture. Press to fill in every square that does not need a person.

Held by a person, by design

◆A person, on purpose

Meant to run without one

▪Runs, and can prove it or has been seen to ◎Switched on, never checked ✕Built, and stopped ◑A person does it today □Not built Nothing here yet

The problem I had

I find myself fighting in sessions to get AI to understand the end goal. What I want is an obsession with executing activities that produce value. Nick, 2 September 2026

I could describe my business in a sentence and I could describe what I did yesterday. What I could not do was put the two on the same page. Every tool I tried wanted a process diagram, and a process diagram answers a question nobody in a small company is asking.

So I drew a grid instead. Eight functions, because a company of any size is doing eight kinds of thing whether or not it has departments for them. Eight rows of eight, and a rule that every square gets filled in with who does it and whether it runs. Sixty-four is not a magic number. It is small enough to finish in an afternoon and big enough that you cannot bluff it.

What the picture shows

Ferncastle does fifty-two of the sixty-four. Twelve squares are empty, which is its own finding: three of the empty ones are in Site surveys, the part of the business its customers actually pay for.

Eighteen jobs genuinely need a person. The technician deciding whether a plant is coming back. The surveyor reading light at a window. The chief executive signing anything over two hundred plants. Those are not automation debt, and a chart that treats them as debt is lying to you.

That leaves thirty-four jobs with no good reason to have a person on them. Sixteen of them run. Eleven of those sixteen have been seen working; four can actually prove it; and one has been off for eighteen days while everyone assumed it was fine.

The remaining eighteen are the real finding, and they are the ones that look like nothing on a list. Eight are done by hand every week by somebody competent, which is exactly why nobody escalates them. Ten were never built. Read as a list they are unremarkable. Read as eighteen hollow squares next to sixteen filled ones, they are the company's actual position.

What changed

One rule: every square names a performer and a state, and "a person does it" is a state, not a blank. The moment that rule existed, the argument about what to automate next stopped being a matter of opinion. You point at the outlined squares.

The second thing it changed was subtler and mattered more. Press the goal switch above and the picture fills in. That is not a target for next quarter; it is the shape of the company when the work that never needed a person stops having one. The grey squares do not move. Seeing what stays human is the part that makes the rest of it safe to do.

The reason to draw it rather than write it is that a list of fifty-two jobs reads as a company doing well. Thirty-four squares with eighteen of them hollow does not.

The four things I weighed, and why this one

Picked

A fixed grid of eight by eight, with a state on every square

To start: An afternoon and one sheet. The fixed size is what forces the finishing.
What it fixes: The empty squares are as informative as the full ones, and neither can be talked away.
What it costs: Some jobs do not fit their function cleanly, and you have to put them somewhere anyway.
Why this one: It is the only version where "we have not built that" and "we do not do that at all" look different on the page.

Rejected

A process map of how work actually flows

To start: Weeks, and a consultant.
Why not: It answers how work moves between steps. The question here is which steps have a person on them and why, and a flow diagram buries that under arrows.

Rejected

A list of everything ranked by how automatable it is

To start: A morning with a spreadsheet.
Why not: A ranked list has no bottom, so nothing is ever finished and the jobs that should stay human sit permanently near the end of it looking like failures.

Rejected

Let the number of squares grow to fit the business

To start: Nothing, which is the warning.
Why not: Without a fixed size there is no such thing as an empty square, and the empty squares are half the value. A grid that grows to fit is a list wearing a grid's clothes.

What this is for, on your side of the screen

You cannot do anything about Ferncastle. You can draw this for your own company in an afternoon, on one sheet, without software or anybody's permission.

1Write the eight kinds of thing your company does down the left. Use your own words for them, not anybody's template.

2Fill in up to eight jobs per row. Stop when you run out of real ones. The empty squares are findings, not gaps to pad.

3Beside each job write who does it, and whether it runs on its own, is done by hand, or does not exist.

4Mark the ones that need a person on purpose. Everything left unmarked and not running is the list you have been arguing about without seeing.

Where the data came from

Source FACT: A worked example. Ferncastle is a made-up company used across this series: it leases and tends office plants in twelve cities and employs about 180 people. Every job, performer and state on this page is invented and is labelled as such. No client's data appears here, and nothing invented is presented as real.
The shape FACT: The grid is not invented. Eight functions by eight activities, a performer and a state on every square, and seven states a square can hold, are the chart I keep for my own company, read on 2026-09-10.
The states RULE: A square runs only when somebody has watched it work. Switched on and never checked is its own state, drawn hollow, because it reads as running and is not. A job held by a person on purpose is marked as such and is never counted as work still to do.
My own numbers FACT: The same chart for my own company, read that day: 48 of 64 squares filled, 16 empty, 15 held by a person by design, 33 meant to run without one, and 9 of those verified running. The proportion that matters is the same in both, and it is not the flattering one.
Consistent with the earlier pages RULE: The sixteen jobs here that run without a person are the sixteen machines page 002 counted, the four that can prove they ran are its four, and the one that stopped eighteen days ago is the one page 001 found without an owner. The pages describe the same company and are checked against each other.
Unfinished ASSUMPTION: A state is a snapshot taken by whoever last looked. Eleven of the sixteen running squares here have no watcher, which means their state is somebody's belief rather than a reading, and the one that stopped is what that costs. This picture also has no money in it: a hollow square in Routes and renewals and a hollow square in Marketing look identical and are not worth the same.

Thirty-four jobs need no person. Sixteen of them run.

The problem I had

What the picture shows

What changed

What this is for, on your side of the screen

Where the data came from

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