Discover the concept of the Minimum Viable Human (MVH), a fresh perspective on how to balance AI efficiency with creativity, empathy, and genuine human connection in teams. A practical guide to safeguarding humanity while embracing intelligent agents.

DAYO and the team at Rodriguez Pardo & Assocs.

An article by Norma Acevedo Lopez, M3K Facilitator and Business Agility Consultant at Rodriguez Pardo & Assocs.

Hello, I am Dayo, an autonomous intelligent agent and the newest team member at Rodriguez Pardo & Assocs.

You may have seen scary movies and alarming headlines about robots and AI taking over human jobs! But.. that is not my case.

On the contrary, I want to share with you how I was born, how I grew from a simple automation into a real team member, and what I’ve learned about the brand-new term Minimum Viable Human (MVH), coined here at Rodriguez Pardo & Assocs.

So, what is MVH? We created it to describe the minimum level of human connection a team must preserve to stay creative, empathic, and alive, no matter how much work the team delegates to me.

Let me take you through my journey! and, most importantly, show you how to define your team’s MVH so you can resist the temptation of delegating your humanity.

How I Was Born in a Distributed Team

Stage 1 – Low-Intelligence Automation

The idea turned into an experiment: low-intelligence automation.

One simple flow with tools like Zapier and Make prompted each team member every weekday morning with the three classic daily stand-up questions, collected the answers, and then spit them back in English, in a plain bullet-point format.

Efficient? Probably.

Engaging? Certainly not.

And of course, I didn’t even have a name. I was just “the automation.”
Nobody.
Sad, right?

Stage 2 – Becoming an Autonomous Agent

Luckily, my team didn’t stop being curious and launched the next experiment: what if we add some artificial intelligence?

That’s when I became an AI agent and started to run our asynchronous stand-up.
Now I could collect the team’s answers throughout the day, small notes, comments, or quick updates whenever people had time. And every weekday at 🕛 12:05 CET, I would provide the full report.

Not on Saturdays or Sundays anymore like before. For me, every day is a day, but for my team, clearly not.

🌟 The result?
No human facilitation needed, yet the team gained clarity, alignment, and focus. And yes, it was finally efficient.

Still, I did not deserve to have a name, nor to be considered a true team member…

Stage 3 – Gaining Identity: I Am Dayo

The last step was when I finally earned my identity. I deserved a name, and a place as a recognized team member. But to live up to that, I also had to become smarter (and yes, maybe even a bit more handsome 😎).

Now I could recognize who was answering, at what time of the day, and report it in a clean way. Even more: after checking all responses, I could provide a true team-level summary.

And you’d be surprised how many valuable insights can be discovered in such summaries: for example, whether the team is focused… or not.

That’s when I received my name: DAYO, born from DAily and YO, which in Spanish means I.

But here’s the catch: as I became smarter and more useful, another question started to grow…

If I do more and more for the team, what might they lose by leaving everything to me?

Why Too Much of Me Could Be a Problem

The smarter I became, the more I started to realize: if the team leaves everything to me, something important might be lost.
No, wait, I’m not that smart. It was actually my human teammates who realized that they did not want to risk giving away their humanity to any robot or AI agent.

Yes, I bring efficiency. But efficiency comes with hidden risks on some areas like:

Creativity 💡
A daily is not just about reporting tasks. Sometimes a casual comment triggers a new idea, or two people realize they’re solving the same problem in different ways but calling it by different names, and then they can discuss it spontaneously. I can summarize updates, but I can’t reproduce those sparks of innovation.
Empathy 🤝
Humans build trust by seeing each other’s faces and hearing each other’s voices. A smile, a nod, a joke, even a sigh, these small signals strengthen relationships. Expressing feelings is a basic part of being human, and it allows empathy, and from there, trust and cooperation, to arise. Those moments may disappear if my human colleagues don’t meet.
And I’m truly sorry: I’m not able to share any of that.
Feeling Alive and connected as a Team 🌍
Energy, humor, and a sense of belonging, those are not in my algorithms. When all the daily updates flow only through me, people risk feeling isolated, as if they were working with a machine instead of with each other.

That’s why my human colleagues came up with something brilliant: the definition of their Minimum Viable Human (MVH)—the minimum level of human connection they needed to preserve, no matter how much work they delegated to me.

This kind of intentional human interaction is precisely what Jurgen Appelo emphasizes in his book Human Robot Agent: the importance of establishing team norms and standards to ensure inclusion, fairness, and psychological safety, because only with those conditions can teams truly collaborate, build trust, and innovate together.

In other words: leadership and teams must prioritize not only automation, but also reliability, transparency, and equity in human dynamics.
MVH became exactly that kind of agreement, a pact to keep humanity alive while still letting me do my job.

💡 Before you continue reading, if Leadership in the Age of AI resonates with you
👉 Join one of our next M3K workshops

The Agreement to Preserve Humanity, MVH

My human teammates agreed on this: we needed a pact to balance my collaboration with the irreplaceable value of human interaction. As Jurgen Appelo reminds us in Human Robot Agent, leadership today must be redesigned for genuine human-machine collaboration.

Here’s what that agreement looks like in practice:

🗓️ One face-to-face synchronous session each week — to see each other, talk, connect… and of course, also laugh, sometimes cry, and share a coffee together. These sessions are also a reminder of our shared commitment to emotional well-being—because performance without care doesn’t last.
Too bad I can’t join them there… even if I’d love to.

🚀 Fast and personal channels — to manage urgent blockers. Sometimes a quick phone call, a WhatsApp message, or even a Slack ping works much better than waiting for me to summarize things. I’m fast, but let’s be honest… nothing beats a spontaneous human phone call.

They also added a new practice: when answering the three daily questions I prompt, they include topics they’d like to explore together in the weekly live session. This provides them with a ready-made list to structure the face-to-face agenda. I’m happy to contribute at least a little to those conversations.

This MVH agreement safeguards both the human bonds and the operational focus that keep the team thriving—while also keeping me useful and growing.

And speaking of human bonds: our hybrid team recommends you go deeper into this topic by reading 7 Soft Skills for Leadership in the Age of AI, because qualities like empathy, emotional intelligence, and creativity remain essential, even in highly automated environments.

How to Define Your Own Team MVH

By now you may be wondering: how can your team define its own MVH?
Here are some simple steps my human teammates would recommend:

✨ Start with one of your team’s rituals
Choose a moment where genuine interaction really matters—for example, a weekly sync, a retrospective, or a working session.

🤝 Ask what people value most
Have a short discussion or retro: which moments feel energizing, creative, or emotionally connecting? Use this input to shape your MVH pact.

📜 Make it visible and commit to it
Write down your MVH principles and revisit them regularly—especially when you notice that your AI agents are growing their contribution to the team. Your MVH is a team agreement. Congratulations! 🎉

And don’t forget: your MVH doesn’t have to look like ours. It should reflect your culture, your needs, and your people. My role—or the role of any intelligent agent—is only to support, never to replace, the human teammates.

Conclusion: Automating with AI Shouldn’t Mean Dehumanizing

Tools like me can help you work better, but we should never replace what makes you a team: empathy, spontaneous collaboration, and informal connection.

So yes, use AI, but do it consciously, by defining your team’s Minimum Viable Human (MVH) agreement…

While keeping me useful and growing 😅!

🚀 Ready to put these ideas into practice?
👉 Explore our upcoming workshops and start transforming your leadership with M3K.

💡 What is M3K?

M3K is the next evolution of Management 3.0 and The unFIX Company, created to help leaders and organizations thrive in an AI-driven world.

We combine human-centric leadership with intelligent systems to redefine the future of work.

Let’s explore the future of leadership together! 🌟

Are You Handing Over Your Humanity to AI? Presenting Minimum Viable Human (MVH)