#028 - Your AI Committee Can Discuss. One Person Must Decide.
Thursday, 16:20.
An AI model starts sending bad recommendations.
The steering committee meets on Monday.
The governance chart says, “The committee owns the decision.”
The operating team now has two bad options: wait four days while the problem continues, or act without authority.
On the operating floor, the governance chart has become a delay mechanism.
Put one name beside each right
Committees matter. They approve budgets and set risk tolerance.
Operating events rarely respect meeting calendars.
Pause may belong to the person authorized to stop bad recommendations now. Fund may sit with the CFO. Rollback may belong to a technology owner.
The people can differ. Write one role beside each right.
The AI Decision Rights Map covers seven authorities:
- Start: Move the initiative into active delivery.
- Fund: Release or withhold the next tranche.
- Review: Decide whether the evidence supports continued work.
- Pause: Halt activity while the team resolves uncertainty.
- Stop: End the initiative when its kill criteria are met.
- Rollback: Restore the previous live state within one hour.
- Escalate: Break a deadlock within an agreed time.
Beside every right, add the holder, the evidence that activates it, and the decision clock.
A committee may still debate the evidence and review the result. The named holder makes the call within the agreed time.
Test the rights under pressure
Take one live AI initiative. Fill the map as if the bad event had happened this afternoon.
Start with Stop.
If the team can launch in 24 hours but must wait five days to stop, you have designed speed for growth and delay for control.
Stop authority must move at least as fast as Start.
Then check Rollback.
A live system needs one owner with pre-delegated authority to restore the previous state within one hour. A meeting scheduled for next week cannot do that job.
Read each row aloud. The holder should know what evidence activates the right and the latest acceptable decision time.
If you need to explain the row after reading it, rewrite it.
Give the initiative a verdict
Every row complete? Usable.
One or two gaps you can close before launch? Repair.
Stop or Rollback missing, committee-only, or slower than Start? Redesign.
These labels expose the empty chair behind “committee-owned.”
Run the map on one live AI initiative this week. The first incomplete row shows where authority will fail under pressure.
GET THE AI DECISION RIGHTS MAP
Your move.
Use this operating instrument alongside your full policy, operating model, control, and legal review.
