Field Guides · Governance Frameworks
Authority Alignment Diagnostic
A practical field guide for testing who can act when an AI intervention is required.
Navixtent · 5 min · 2026-08-04
Start with one real intervention.
Choose one consequential event where the organization may need to approve, contain, remediate, pause, scale, resequence, fund, or stop AI-enabled work.
Do not begin with the target operating model. Reconstruct what actually happened.
A blank owner, decision right, threshold, or obligation is a governance gap to investigate—not a score to celebrate.
Step 1
Define the intervention
Capture
- The signal or event
- The consequential decision required
- The evidence and decision threshold
- The time boundary for reaching an authorized disposition
Step 2
Map who can act
Technical authority
Can the action be constrained, identified, observed, and contained?
Operational authority
Who owns operation, approval, exception response, and remediation?
Portfolio authority
Who can stop, scale, sequence, fund, or withdraw?
Institutional or acquisition authority
Which duties, performance rules, and end states govern?
Step 3
Create one governed record
- 01Signal or event
- 02Decision required
- 03Evidence and threshold
- 04Authority by layer
- 05Authorized disposition
- 06Owner and deadline
- 07Outcome and learning
Can another accountable leader reconstruct why the disposition was authorized, who acted, what obligation applied, and what the organization learned?
Step 4
Interrogate the blank cells
- Is the intervention event specific enough to route?
- Is each decision right assigned to a named role or forum?
- Can the operational owner act without waiting for an undefined escalation?
- Can the portfolio authority pause, stop, scale, or resequence the work?
- Is the evidence threshold explicit and available?
- Do institutional, regulatory, or acquisition duties define acceptable closure?
- Does the escalation path preserve accountability across layers?
- Are the authorized disposition and action deadline recorded?
- Can the outcome be connected to the original decision and evidence?
- Will the learning change policy, ownership, thresholds, or operating design?
A blank answer is a prompt for investigation. It is not, by itself, evidence of organizational failure. Resolve the owner, right, threshold, or obligation before the next consequential intervention tests it in real time.
Use the Diagnostic
Download the five-page field guide and complete it using one recent AI exception, escalation, or scale decision.
Read the field guide
Load the embedded reader below, or open the PDF in a new tab.
Use Boundary
This exploratory Navixtent diagnostic is a governed synthesis and leadership reflection tool. It is not an external standard, certification, compliance determination, validated maturity assessment, market-adoption claim, commercial offer, or evidence of realized benefits.