25+
people ordering each week
~1 hr
organizer time saved per week
12+
weeks running
The problem
Every week, the organizers in HR ran office lunch by hand: pick a restaurant, message everyone who was in, chase the replies, then compile one order. Nobody had asked for a fix. It was just how lunch worked.
Who it’s for
- Organizers: want a finished order without chasing anyone.
- Everyone else: one email, one short form, and no follow-ups once they’ve answered.
How it works
One week of lunch, start to finish. The system handles the reminders and the paperwork; people make the calls.
Where the week stands
- Pending
- Ready
- Collecting
- Closed
- Mon · 9:00 AMAutomatic→ Pending
Kick off the week
Organizers get a short email: pick a restaurant and share the ordering link by end of day. Nobody else is bothered yet, because there’s no lunch to announce until there’s a restaurant.
- Mon · anytimeOrganizers→ Ready
Organizers choose the spot
They add the restaurant and link through one form. If they don’t get to it, nothing nags them and nothing breaks.
- Tue · 8:00 AMAutomatic→ Collecting
Announce, or don’t
The one real decision in the system, based on where the week stands:
✓ Restaurant is set
The whole office gets the menu and two questions: are you in tomorrow, and what do you want? Deadline is end of day.
✕ Not set up
The office hears nothing. Organizers get a quick heads-up, and the week is skipped. No lunch email for a lunch that doesn’t exist.
- Tue · all dayEveryone
Orders roll in
Each answer lands as its own record, and changing your mind just replaces your last answer. So “who hasn’t replied?” and “what did everyone order?” are instant lookups, not inbox archaeology.
- Tue · 4:30 PMAutomatic
Last call
Only the people who haven’t answered get a nudge, and nobody does if everyone has. It checks the live staff list, so new hires are included and nobody maintains a list.
- Tue · 6:00 PMAutomatic→ Closed
Close and hand off
Ordering closes. The organizer gets a headcount, a clean table of names and orders (plus a file), and a flag for anyone coming in who forgot to order. Tuesday evening, so there’s time to place it before lunch.
- WedOrganizers
Place the order
The organizer pays and orders. This is the one step I deliberately left with a person for the pilot (more below).
Key decisions
- Autonomy vs. trust. I wanted it fully autonomous: the system places the order and organizers just approve it. But a tool that spends company money and speaks for HR has to earn trust before it earns autonomy. So for the pilot I proposed a hybrid: automate the chasing and compiling, keep payment in the organizers’ hands. That made it an easy yes.
- Every step checks where the week stands before acting, and no step depends on another finishing. If the last call hiccups, the final report still goes out with whatever came in, and any single step can be re-run without re-sending anything else.
- Quiet by default. The office only hears about lunch once there’s a lunch, and people who’ve already answered never get chased.
Outcome
The pilot runs every week with nobody chasing replies. Organizers get a finished order on Tuesday evening instead of spending an hour on follow-ups, and people who have already answered never hear about lunch again that week.
What I’d do next
Phase two moves the final step to an agent with an approval gate: it places the order and the organizer just confirms. I designed the Tuesday hand-off to be machine-readable, not just a nice-looking email, so that step is ready when they are. After that, small touches like remembering people’s usual orders.
Up next
Shipping live TV with a team I had no authority over