# Northstar: evidence available before readiness

**Learning edition:** 1.2 · **Decision date:** 2026-01-30 · **Classification:** public, entirely fictional.
**Boundary:** previous Episode A decisions and E-008. No release-performance evidence is available.

These newly authored extracts extend the fictional v1.1 case. They are not actual meeting minutes or recovered enterprise records.

## Prior decisions now available

Jordan Reed (ORG-13), after review with Morgan Ellis and Priya Shah, recorded DEC-001 on January 9: conditionally authorize A1/R1 within a $150–300k planning range, with a $15k diagnostic stage, $75k cumulative preparation limit, and $300k total cap. Activation requires accepted policy, definitions, owners/source statuses, branch selection, and readiness. The cap includes branch participation. No authority to expand to twelve branches follows.

DEC-002 defers enterprise-platform procurement. A4 targeted integration remains a comparator if residual gaps justify it. Procurement needs separate evidence and business-case authorization; neither a successful prototype nor adoption alone selects a vendor.

## E-008

**Source:** signed preparation records and readiness review packet, 2026-01-30.
**Owners:** Priya Shah ORG-09; Morgan Ellis ORG-12; Casey Ortiz ORG-15 readiness chair; Supply and Information Governance for source conditions.
**Authority:** approved only for the stated R1 scope. Measures and source acceptances are versioned; operating performance remains unobserved.

### E-008.1: diagnostic report

Avery Chen and Supply staff inspected 24 reservation-event sequences. Seven had delayed status updates; four uses of “allocated” did not denote a confirmed reservation. This purposive diagnostic establishes a semantic/control defect, not an enterprise failure rate. Timing 18 dispatcher checks found median checking effort of six minutes and a range of two to seventeen minutes; sample selection and observer effects limit extrapolation.

A4's feed is technically plausible, but directly publishing the present status would carry the ambiguity into a faster interface. One branch already uses a reliable confirmation call; rural technician coverage and exception latency remain unresolved. These observations justify investigating an operating practice while preserving targeted integration as a rival. They do not establish that software is unnecessary.

The Council's January 19 stage-release addendum to DEC-001, following review of the diagnostic by Priya Shah and Morgan Ellis, authorized preparation spending up to $75k cumulatively. Neither the initial envelope nor completion of a checklist released those funds automatically.

Stage-0 diagnostic cost: $12k. Preparation expenditure after diagnostic: $58k. Cumulative $70k remains below the $75k preparation limit. The updated forecast is $286k total and no more than six peak temporary FTE. Finance records these as forecasts, not results.

### E-008.2: policy and rights

POL-01 v1.0 requires valid BO-02 promise data and part, skill, geography, and capacity confirmation for the normal path. Where confirmation is unavailable, a complete approved exception identifies reason, approver, expiry, and customer communication.

ORG-02 branch managers approve delegated local exceptions; ORG-05 Regional Operations handles cross-branch cases. Dispatchers apply rules but cannot waive guardrails. A changed promise retains the original and its version links; a broken promise opens customer recovery before closure.

ORG-15 may activate, stagger, adapt, pause, or stop R1 within its delegated scope. For the M-03 margin guardrail only, after CFO validation it may authorize one contained remediation interval to the next formal review. It cannot renew that exception, exceed the investment/capacity cap, activate R2, or reopen procurement.

### E-008.3: object-source decision

ORG-08 is confirmed as the BO-05 business-object owner. The inventory reservation record is accepted as a **provisional R1 status source**, subject to twice-daily reconciliation. It is not authoritative enterprise-wide.

BO-02's existing record is accepted for R1 with versioning, original/revised linkage, and audit rules. Acceptance does not declare the enterprise future-state technology.

OI-02 is closed for its R1 question. OI-06 opens under ORG-08 and ORG-10: determine enterprise/future-state BO-05 authority before R2 activation. The boundary is material; replacing “provisional R1” with “authoritative” changes the decision.

### E-008.4: branch and evidence design

Selected branches: metropolitan, mixed-fleet, and rural. Minimum 90-day volume: 100 eligible promises per branch and 450 overall. This is an operational sufficiency threshold, not a statistical power calculation or guarantee of representativeness.

The January 3–February 1 baseline window is prospective and not yet complete on January 30. Eligibility is fixed to specified test work types; retain cancelled, revised, declined, and removed-scope counts separately. A source may not delete unfavorable observations to meet a gate. Record both original and latest accepted promise performance and hours until equipment is restored. Before activation, Finance and Operations must confirm the finished baseline reconciliation.

M-04 checks recorded part/skill signals. M-07 checks complete compliant workflow, including approved exceptions. Neither is universally a subset of the other. The approved reporting plan uses day-30 and later-period operational snapshots for these measures; labels must identify their periods. Do not compare a current-practice percentage with a cumulative result as if denominators were identical.

### E-008.5: guards and measures

| Measure | R1 interpretation / action |
|---|---|
| M-01 | 92% cumulative latest-promise adherence is an interim feasibility gate; 95% remains the strategic target |
| M-02 | Repeat visits remain provisional; rebaseline cause coding before R2 |
| M-03 | At least 31% cumulative margin at investment review; CFO validates; no expansion on breach |
| M-04 | 90% required part/skill confirmation in the later operational review period |
| M-05 | Day-30 escalation rate at most 0.5 per 100 above the approved baseline; severe harm pauses affected work |
| M-06 | No more than 3% unexplained technician-productivity deterioration; Field Service and Finance validate; no scale while unresolved |
| M-07 | At least 85% compliant use by day 30 and 95% in the later operational period |
| M-08 | At most $300k total and six peak temporary FTE; forecast breach requires scope/funding action before excess occurs |
| POL-01 | At least 90% of exception requests resolved within one operating shift; repair authority/capacity before enforcing or scaling |
| Learning-edition balancing view | Report original-promise fulfillment, revisions, cancellations, declined work, and restoration hours; adverse movement triggers customer-value investigation even if M-01 passes |

### E-008.6: readiness observations

| Area | Evidence currently available | Unresolved condition |
|---|---|---|
| Ownership/policy | Rights signed; tabletop completed | None within R1 scope |
| Information | BO-02 linkage passed; one branch has delayed BO-05 updates | Twice-daily reconciliation with named Supply duty owner |
| Exception capacity | Peak-volume simulation exposes rural approval backlog | Assign and test regional backup approver |
| Training | 91% complete; one shift has not passed scenarios | No activation for an untrained shift |
| Measures | Definitions agreed; parallel-run tests reconcile | Finish the January baseline before activation; preserve unresolved M-02 coding |
| Recovery | Rollback and record-retention procedure tested | Maintain original promises and recovery ownership on rollback |

The forum has not yet made DEC-003. Write a decision with explicit conditions and expiry; do not infer a waiver from the investment authorization.