“This will be fixed.”
If you can add by monkeys to the end of your sentence and it still makes sense, you have not told anyone to do the work.
One second per sentence. Your ear does the parsing.
This will be fixed … by monkeys.
Ana is fixing it by Thursday … by monkeys?
A sentence that lands fills three slots
The test only listens for the missing subject. Every quote below passes it and still leaves the work unclaimed.
Who is doing what by when.
Priya is deleting the legacy auth path by Tuesday.
Who
A person, not a team
“The platform team will look at it.”
→ “Sam is looking at it.”
Name one person. They can delegate.
What
The next action, not the outcome
“Ana owns deploy reliability.”
→ “Ana is adding a rollback step to deploys.”
Nobody can start an outcome on Monday.
When
A time you could both check
“Sam will reply as soon as possible.”
→ “Sam will reply by Thursday 17:00.”
Soon is hours to you and days to them.
Run the test
Two fail, one passes, and one fails on purpose.
The root cause has been identified … by monkeys.
Slots left empty
The investigation has an owner. The fix does not.
The rewrite
Marco found the root cause and is writing the fix today.
“Identified” never expires. “Today” is a claim you can check at six.
The endpoint is still blocked … by monkeys.
Slots left empty
A status, not a request. This is how a blocker sits for four days.
The rewrite
I am blocked on the platform endpoint. I am asking Sam for a date at 11.
Standup exists to ask for help.
I am rolling back the 15:38 deploy now … by monkeys?
The read
Subject, verb, object, time. Every slot filled, in eight words.
Why it passes
The test is a filter, not an instruction to rewrite everything.
A duplicate charge was sent to 400 customers … by monkeys.
The read
Naming the engineer, in a doc the whole company reads, buys nothing. Passive on purpose.
Why it stays
The action items under it still get names.
How it fails in the wild
Run it on your own drafts, before you send. Run it on someone else’s in review and it becomes a style argument: you will be right, and they will rewrite nothing.
A sentence with no subject is a task with no owner.