What decision does the Second-Role Test frame?
Whether now is the time to add a second Digital FTE, and which function it should own. Teams reach this question in one of two states: excited by the first role and wanting to add three, or exhausted by the first role's setup and unwilling to add any. The frame is for both, because the answer comes from the first role's record rather than from the mood. On ftes.ai the second role is set up in a fraction of the first's time, since the platform re-asks nothing it knows, which makes the timing question the only real one.
The frame is four questions. Each is answered from something you can open.
What are the four questions?
Settled: has the first role promoted at least one routine class under the Promotion Standard, are its send-back reasons about tone, and does its manager understand its targets and its budget from usage? Spare: are the manager's approval minutes per day for the first role falling week on week, and does the manager have a routing plan so the second role's routine approvals go to the person closest to that function? Clear: does the candidate function have a checkable right answer in a system you already run, a baseline recorded or recordable in two weeks, and an escalate list you can write today? Funded: does the first role's usage over a cycle, plus an estimate for the second from the same figures, fit the next plan block with room?
Answer each with evidence from the Performance tab, the Approvals record, the baseline sheet, and the wallet.
- Settled: promoted class, tone send-backs, targets understood
- Spare: approval minutes falling, routing planned
- Clear: checkable answer, baseline, escalate list
- Funded: next block sized from usage
How does the worked example read, with the inputs left blank?
First role: Customer Support FTE, started [date]. Settled: the order-status category was promoted on [date]; of [S] send-backs in the last cycle, [T] concerned tone; targets were reviewed on [date] and the manager sized the block at [tokens] from usage of [tokens]. Spare: the manager's Approvals minutes per day fell from [minutes] in week one to [minutes] in week [N]; routine approvals for the second role will go to [name]. Candidate second role: Finance Controller FTE for payout reconciliation. Clear: the right answer lives in [processor] and [ledger]; the baseline is days to close, [days] and [days] for the last two closes, and exceptions on day one, [count]; the escalate list is refunds, disputes, and anything over [threshold]. Funded: first-role usage of [tokens] per cycle plus an estimate of [tokens] for the second fits the [plan] block with [tokens] spare.
If a bracket cannot be filled from the record, that question is a no, and the test says wait.
Which second role usually follows which first?
Adjacent functions, where one role's output feeds the other, show benefit sooner and share a manager's context. Support followed by knowledge-base-driven content, because the gaps the support FTE finds become the topics the content FTE writes. Finance reconciliation followed by receivables, because the matched ledger is the receivables FTE's evidence. Search visibility followed by social, because the pages become the posts. SDR followed by CRM hygiene, which is often the same role's remit widened. Recruiting followed by onboarding. The order is a heuristic, not a rule; the four questions decide.
The piece on running multiple Digital FTEs describes what the second role adds to the workforce view and what it does not change.
How is the frame applied?
At the first role's second monthly review, write the four questions with the brackets filled. If all four are yes, choose the function, record its baseline, write its remit, and hire it from the workspace; the first-run wizard pre-fills everything the platform knows. If Settled is no, fix the first role before adding anything; a second role on top of an unsettled first doubles the problem. If Spare is no, route the first role's routine approvals before adding; the workforce view's combined brief is designed for the manager who has done this. If Clear is no, record the baseline and write the escalate list, and re-run the test in two weeks. If Funded is no, change the plan first.
Re-run the test before each further role. The answers get faster because the record gets longer.
What does the frame refuse?
Adding roles because the first is exciting. Adding a judgement-heavy role, market entry, research synthesis, as the second, before the approval habit exists for evidence-based work. Adding a role without a baseline because the pilot is small. Adding a role during the first role's first cycle, when nothing is settled. And adding a role the wallet cannot fund from usage, which produces a hard stop mid-cycle and two roles paused instead of one running. The refusals are cheap; the mistakes they prevent cost a quarter.
The whitepaper on hybrid team design describes the shape of a team once several roles are running.