The Decision System Family¶
This section defines a family of decision systems used across different decision regimes.
The systems in this family are not interchangeable.
Each is optimized for a specific combination of strategy clarity and commitment safety.
What makes them a family is not shared mechanics, but shared intent, vocabulary, and boundaries.
Together, they ensure that decisions are made deliberately, inspectably, and proportionally to the risk of commitment.
Why a Decision System Family Exists¶
In practice, organizations often treat decision-making as:
- implicit
- informal
- absorbed by planning or governance
- standardized regardless of context
This creates two recurring problems:
- the same decision approach is applied everywhere, even when unsafe
- different decision approaches are mixed incoherently within the same initiative
The Decision System Family exists to prevent both.
It makes explicit that:
- different contexts require fundamentally different decision logic
- decision systems must change as decision regimes change
- consistency comes from shared principles, not uniform process
What Defines a Decision System¶
Within this framework, a decision system is defined by:
- the type of decisions it is designed to support
- the risks it is meant to contain
- the authority model it assumes
- the evidence it requires
- the binding force of its outcomes
Decision systems are not:
- delivery workflows
- governance contracts
- facilitation techniques
They operate before those systems are selected or activated.
Shared Invariants Across the Family¶
All decision systems in this family share the following invariants.
These do not change across regimes.
Decisions Are Explicit¶
Every system produces a visible outcome:
- a commitment
- a rejection
- a deferral
- or a reframing
Silent decisions and implicit commitments are treated as system failures.
Decision Assumptions Are Inspectable¶
Each system requires assumptions to be surfaced in a form that can be:
- reviewed
- challenged
- revisited later
The level of rigor varies by regime.
The requirement for inspectability does not.
Decision Authority Is Declared¶
Each system makes clear:
- who is allowed to decide
- under what conditions
- with what consequences
Ambiguity in authority is treated as decision risk, not a cultural issue.
Decision Outcomes Match Commitment Risk¶
The strength of a decision outcome is proportional to:
- how irreversible the commitment is
- how much damage a wrong decision would cause
Lightweight decisions are used where reversibility is high.
Binding decisions are reserved for unsafe commitment contexts.
Minimum Viable Commitment¶
For any decision that creates binding commitment beyond the decision-maker, there is a minimum acceptable level of commitment coherence.
A decision may proceed only if:
- no required stakeholder is in active non-compliance, and
- reservations are explicitly recorded and mitigated.
Decisions that fail this threshold must not proceed.
They must either:
- change decision archetype,
- invoke a conflict-resolution mechanism,
- or return to a learning-safe decision system.
Proceeding without minimum viable commitment constitutes a decision system failure.
What Varies Across Decision Regimes¶
While the family shares invariants, key properties vary deliberately.
Decision Intent¶
- Learning-focused in learning-safe regimes
- Commitment-justifying in forced-commitment regimes
- Risk-protective in commitment-protection regimes
- Speed-optimizing in autonomous regimes
Evidence Requirements¶
- Exploratory signals in learning-safe regimes
- Explicit trade-offs and constraints in forced-commitment regimes
- Impact and invariance analysis in commitment-protection regimes
- Minimal evidence bounded by local context in autonomous regimes
Binding Force¶
- Provisional and reversible
- Explicit and binding
- Protective and constraining
- Local and lightweight
Authority Model¶
- Distributed and exploratory
- Centralized at commitment points
- Controlled at boundaries
- Fully delegated within limits
Progression, Not Maturity¶
The Decision System Family supports progression between regimes, not maturity levels.
Moving from one decision system to another does not imply:
- improvement
- organizational growth
- increased autonomy
It reflects a change in:
- strategy clarity
- commitment safety
- dependency structure
- external constraints
Regression to a more constrained decision system is sometimes the correct response.
Relationship to Other Parts of the Framework¶
The Decision System Family:
- uses contextual signals, but does not replace contextual analysis
- informs delivery system design, but does not define execution
- constrains governance activation, but does not enforce compliance
- complements diagnostics by preventing misclassification upstream
It exists to ensure that:
decisions are shaped by reality, not by preference or habit.
What Follows¶
Subsequent sections define:
- how each decision regime maps to a specific decision system
- what decisions each system is designed to support
- what failure modes appear when systems are misapplied
Each regime-specific system should be understood as:
- complete in itself
- unsafe outside its intended regime
- part of a coherent whole