THE QUESTION
“Can this rebill over the threshold be approved, and who signs it?”
LAYER | QUESTION IT RAISES | WHAT IT NEEDS |
|---|---|---|
| Process | Which step is this?Exception handling, not standard billing | Exception handling, not standard billing |
| Object | What is moving?The billing document, not the account | The billing document, not the account |
| Role | Who touches it?The step’s approver, not the requester | The step’s approver, not the requester |
| Policy | What constrains it?The threshold, and where it is written | The threshold, and where it is written |
| System | Where does it happen?The transaction, the screen, the field | The transaction, the screen, the field |
| Evidence | How do we know?Page 34 of the design document, quoted | Page 34 of the design document, quoted |
WHY CAN’T IT JUST ANSWER THAT?
One question. 6 layers of context.
A system that knows only your data can name the tables. It cannot tell you which exception path this invoice took, who is allowed to approve it, or which rule applied on the day.
Every layer above hangs off the process. That is the argument for building the process layer first.
No credit card. Five design partner places. A person replies.
Layer by layer, with and without a record6 LAYERS
PROCESS
A system that knows your data sees a billing record. It cannot tell whether this one is routine or an exception, because that distinction lives in how the work runs, not in the table.
The record knows this is the exception path, which steps it adds, and which of them exist only because a policy demands them.
OBJECT
It offers you the customer account, because that is the table with the most relationships. The thing actually moving through the process is the billing document.
The record tracks the billing document as its own thing, with every event that has touched it, in order.
PEOPLE
It can list who has database permissions. It cannot tell you who owns the decision, or who to escalate to when the threshold is exceeded.
The role sits on the step it performs, with the escalation path attached to the decision it governs.
POLICY
The rule lives in a document nobody queried. The data shows an approval happened, not which rule required it.
The control is attached to the step it constrains, quoting the page it came from.
SYSTEMS
It knows which system holds the table. It does not know which system the person was actually looking at, or what they did next.
Each step names the system it runs on, and the integration that carries the handoff.
PERFORMANCE
It can compute an average. It cannot tell you which target that average was supposed to meet.
The target sits on the step it measures, with the service standard it came from.
FOR YOUR TECHNICAL TEAM
How the record is structured, and the open standard it follows →Ask it the awkward question.
Upload one document and see how far the answer goes.
No credit card. Five design partner places. A person replies.