Decision Architecture Test.
Twelve structural questions. No scoring. The pattern in the answers names whether your situation is actually a decision-architecture situation.
What this test is for.
The test names whether the situation in front of you is sitting in the decision-architecture layer. It does not solve the situation. It tells you which kind of work the situation needs.
Most consequence-heavy situations in private companies sit in one of three layers: ownership, decision architecture, or execution. Each layer responds to a different kind of work. Naming the layer first prevents months of work in the wrong layer. The test below is designed to surface that.
There is no quiz score. The test reads as a structured conversation with yourself. Each section of three questions sharpens a specific layer. The pattern in the answers tells you which layer is most active.
Triage before treatment.
The Atlas borrows from the medical emergency-room triage pattern. Before any treatment, the patient is read for which kind of treatment is needed. The same logic applies here. Before scoping help, the situation is read for which layer it sits in.
This page is the triage. Once the layer is named, the right next step is named. Sometimes that is decision-architecture work. Often it is something else.
First three questions.
- Will this decision change control, ownership, authority, capital, governance, or the operating model?
- Is something becoming irreversible the moment this decision is made?
- Will the cost of getting this wrong show up across multiple quarters, not just this one?
Three yes answers and the situation is consequence-heavy enough to warrant the architecture frame. Two or fewer and the situation is most likely operational. The architecture frame on a low-consequence decision wastes everyone's time.
Next three questions.
- Is the option set in front of you reasonably clear, or do you not yet know what the realistic options are?
- Has a strategy review been completed in the past 18 months without producing a decision?
- If a smart peer asked you what the question is, could you state it in one sentence?
Clear option set, prior strategy review without movement, articulable question: the layer is architecture. Unclear option set or unarticulable question: the layer is strategy. Both can be real. The test simply names which one is active right now.
Next three questions.
- If asked, can you name in one sentence who has the rights to make this decision?
- Is the named decider ready to live with what they will own after the decision?
- Is anyone in the room with consent rights, and have they been given a real proposal to consent to or block?
Confusion on question 7 is an authority problem. Hesitation on question 8 is a consequence problem. Confusion on question 9 is a consent problem. Each routes to a different next step. See The Authority Map and Consent Rights And Authority for the structural reads.
Final three questions.
- Is the actual block emotional or relational rather than structural? A grief, a betrayal, a partnership rupture.
- Is the actual block ownership-layer? What the company exists for, who owns it, what it is being used to accomplish.
- Is time genuinely the issue? Is there an external clock that makes "decide now with what you have" the right answer?
Yes to question 10 routes to mediation, therapy, or partnership counsel before architecture work. Yes to question 11 routes to ownership-layer work, which is above architecture. Yes to question 12 routes to acting now and saving the architecture work for the postmortem.
The pattern matters more than the count.
Block A all yes, Block B in the architecture column, Block C reveals at least one structural break, Block D all no. The situation is sitting cleanly in the decision-architecture layer. The architecture work is the right next step.
Block A all yes, Block B in the strategy column, Block C unclear, Block D all no. Strategy work first. Architecture work second.
Block A mostly no. The situation does not warrant the architecture frame. Operational or project-level help is the right read.
Block D yes anywhere. The architecture frame is not the most active layer. Address the indicated layer first.
The test is a triage tool. It names the layer. It does not prescribe the help. The next page does that.
Where to go from here.
Once you have the layer, the right help follows.