Two different permissions

The owner's permission is authority: the person who decides how this process works agrees it may change, and agrees what success looks like.

The performers' agreement is different and is the one that actually determines whether your system gets used. These are the people who will find the edge cases, work around anything annoying, and either flag a wrong output or quietly correct it and say nothing.

You need both, and they are separate conversations. Getting the first and skipping the second is the standard failure: a system with executive backing that everybody routes around.

Say the quiet part first

Somebody is wondering whether this is about reducing headcount. If you do not raise it, they will assume the worst and be right often enough to justify it.

Say what is actually true, plainly, early, and only what you can stand behind. If you do not know, say you do not know — that is survivable. Promising job security you cannot guarantee is not, and it will be remembered precisely.

Also say what you are not measuring. People assume an instrumented process is a monitored person. Being explicit that you are measuring the process, not their performance, costs one sentence and buys the honest error rate you need in the next module.

Have both conversations, and write down what was agreed

Not a formal document — a short note, sent to the people who were in the room, saying what you understood was agreed. Ask them to correct it.

This is not bureaucracy. In six weeks somebody will remember the agreement differently, and a note they had the chance to correct is worth more than either memory.

The performers are not keen

The owner is enthusiastic. The two people who actually do the task are polite, non-committal, and one says 'we've had these before'.

Before you instrument anything

This runs inside somebody's real work. These are obligations, not suggestions.

The conversation you did not want to have

You now know things about this process that you could not have learned from a system of record.