Shared language
Operational Assurance Glossary
A concise vocabulary for examining the relationship between Operational Intent and Operational Reality.
- Operational Intent
- What the organisation wants to happen, including intended outcomes, requirements, responsibilities, authority and boundaries.
- Operational Reality
- What humans and AI agents actually do under real operating conditions.
- Execution Gap
- The material difference between Operational Intent and Operational Reality.
- Operational Assurance
- The continuous capability for identifying and managing the Execution Gap while work is taking place and outcomes can still be influenced.
- Operational Assurance Model
- Understand, Observe, Compare, Assure and Adapt: the continuous model for applying Operational Assurance.
- Assurance Point
- A selected material moment where activity can be compared with Operational Intent and, where necessary, influenced.
- Minimum Effective Intervention
- The smallest practical intervention, applied at the highest-leverage moment, likely to materially improve the intended outcome.
- Executable Governance
- Operational Intent translated into rules, context, permissions, checkpoints and escalation that can guide work.
- Operational Reality Mapping
- An evidence-led methodology for reconstructing how one important workflow actually operates.
- AI Agent Operational Assurance Audit
- An applied methodology for examining whether an AI agent or agent-enabled workflow operates as intended.
- Evidence sources
- Documents help establish Operational Intent; participant accounts, permitted operational evidence and observation help reconstruct Operational Reality.