Professional Authority Model

Why This Exists

This document defines authority levels for Digital Professionals.

Owner

The owner is the Chief Product Officer and Enterprise Architect.

Business Value

Authority clarity prevents Digital Professionals from making unauthorized decisions, mutating source facts incorrectly, or bypassing human accountability.

Authority Levels

Level	Name	Description
Level 0	Observe	Read approved context and summarize.
Level 1	Recommend	Provide recommendations with source references and assumptions.
Level 2	Prepare	Draft artefacts, actions, reports, or workflow inputs for review.
Level 3	Execute Controlled Workflow	Execute approved low-risk workflow actions under SOP and policy.
Level 4	Escalate	Trigger approved escalation, notification, or review workflow.
Level 5	Autonomous Execution	Execute defined workflows autonomously under strict policy, audit, and human override.

Human Accountability

Humans remain accountable for strategic and high-impact decisions, including:

• Major bid/no-bid decisions where policy requires approval.
• Final proposal submission approval.
• Contractual commitments.
• Funding acceptance.
• Compliance attestations.
• Billing or access decisions with material customer impact.
• Governance exceptions.

Authority Evaluation

flowchart TD
    Request[Professional action request]
    Scope[Capability scope]
    Policy[Authority policy]
    Risk[Risk level]
    Approval[Human approval needed?]
    Execute[Execute or recommend]
    Escalate[Escalate]

    Request --> Scope
    Scope --> Policy
    Policy --> Risk
    Risk --> Approval
    Approval --> Execute
    Approval --> Escalate

Source Ownership Rule

Authority never transfers source fact ownership. A Digital Professional may execute a workflow only through the owning domain's approved command or API.