Guidance Selection and Exception Design Record

Guidance Selection and Exception Design Record

Selection variables

The guidance form should be selected from the task rather than from a general preference for autonomy or control.

Default selection logic

Use a framework when the work has legitimate variation and requires diagnosis or prioritization. Define outcomes, constraints, decision factors, prohibited actions, and escalation triggers.

Use a procedure when the sequence, control, evidence, or authorization must be repeatable. Define applicability, prerequisites, steps, limits, deviations, safe stop, records, owner, and update process.

Use a checklist when the operator already understands the work and needs a concise prompt at critical points. Keep it short enough to use, tie each item to a meaningful failure mode, and define who participates.

Use a combination when the task contains both standard and variable work. The procedure can carry the normal path, the checklist can protect critical points, and the framework can guide diagnosis within authorized discretion.

Exception path

Every form needs a boundary. State what makes the standard path invalid, what the operator may decide, when work must stop, who owns escalation, which evidence travels with the case, and how the guidance is updated after learning.

An exception path should not disguise unauthorized improvisation. In safety-critical, regulated, legal, medical, financial, or other specialist domains, the governing standard and qualified authority control.

Testing and maintenance

Test the guidance with representative users, normal cases, boundary cases, interruptions, missing information, and plausible failure states. Observe comprehension and behavior rather than relying only on approval.

Assign an owner, review date, change trigger, version, and retirement rule. A clear procedure that describes an old system can be more dangerous than an openly incomplete draft.