Shared language
Operational Assurance Glossary
A concise vocabulary for examining the relationship between organisational intent and actual execution.
- Assured Agent
- An AI agent operating within continuously verified organisational boundaries.
- Assured Enterprise
- An organisation capable of continuously aligning human and AI execution with operational intent.
- Assurance Loop
- The recurring process through which execution is observed, compared, influenced and improved.
- Assurance Point
- A moment within execution at which activity can be evaluated against operational requirements.
- Change Agent
- An intervention mechanism designed to influence human or AI behaviour during execution.
- Executable Governance
- Governance translated into rules and controls capable of participating directly in execution.
- Execution Gap
- The distance between intended and actual organisational execution.
- Minimum Effective Intervention
- The smallest intervention, at the highest-leverage moment, that materially improves the probability of the intended outcome.
- Operational Assurance
- Operational Assurance is the continuous process of ensuring that human and AI activity remains aligned with an organisation’s policies, processes, controls, responsibilities and strategic intent—during the execution of work, not merely after it.
- Operational Drill
- A method for following the work itself through material events, handoffs, waits, decisions, approvals and exceptions.
- Operational Reality
- What actually happens when a real piece of work travels through the organisation.
- Operational Reality Mapping
- An evidence-led diagnostic that reconstructs how a critical job gets done and compares that reality with organisational intent.
- Operational Truth
- A usable representation of how an organisation intends work to be performed and assured.
- Reported Reality
- How employees and managers believe or describe work happening.
- Stated Reality
- How policies, procedures and governance documents say work should happen.