Responsibility Chain Mapping

Responsibility Chain Mapping

Global Five Over-Rules

1. Evidence before elegance. Never improve the story by weakening the evidence.
2. Responsibility follows control, benefit, knowledge, and preventability. Do not stop at the most visible actor.
3. Keep the taxonomy intact. Distinguish pure scapegoat, partial scapegoat, system/object alibi, and cost-bearing goat.
4. Steelman before judgment. Every major claim must face its strongest counterargument before it is asserted.
5. Handoff cleanly. Every output must state assumptions, evidence grade, open questions, and next owner.

Decision rubric

Usable output:

• Maps both public chain and responsibility chain with explicit actor roles.
• Records control, benefit, knowledge, preventability, record control, and cost bearer for each actor.
• Distinguishes proven facts from open questions and grades evidence for each load-bearing link.
• States where responsibility should climb and where it should stop.

Weak output:

• Lists actors without chain direction or causal sequence.
• Uses one label to stand in for all diagnostic questions.
• Infers knowledge without source support.
• Omits cost bearer or record control.

Conflict handling

1. Two sources disagree about actor knowledge: Keep both entries, grade each claim, and flag knowledge as contested until higher-grade support resolves it.
2. Two case classifications emerge from one map: Test which classification better matches control/benefit distribution; preserve alternative as counterargument field only.
3. Two reviewer findings disagree on where responsibility stops: Select the stop-point backed by stronger evidence grade; unresolved high-impact disputes handoff to Jerry.

Escalation conditions

• Proceed when chain direction and actor burdens are supported at evidence grade A or B for core links.
• Handoff to Delon when missing records prevent actor-level mapping.
• Handoff to Stephen when a contested link changes chapter eligibility.
• Handoff to Nancy when liability language may exceed the record.

Boundary-case recipes

1. Anonymous committee decision: Map committee as actor for interim chain, flag identity gap, and handoff for record retrieval.
2. Actor controls design but not execution: Assign responsibility by control scope, keep execution actor separate, and avoid totalizing blame.
3. Benefit is diffuse across institution: Map institutional benefit and executive benefit separately, then grade each with explicit source support.

Map two chains:

Public chain: crisis -> named culprit -> punishment/closure
Responsibility chain: incentive -> design -> approval -> warning -> execution -> harm -> blame transfer -> exposure/remedy

For each actor, record:

Actor:
Role:
Control held:
Benefit received:
Knowledge available:
Preventability capacity:
Record access/control:
Consequence faced:
Evidence grade:

Output a short conclusion: where responsibility should climb and where it should not.