ECOS is an architecture for working with knowledge and decisions that is under development and independent of any specific technology. We are developing it as the foundation of HumGu solutions and as a separate offer for organisations.
- What situation is it for?
- It is hard to reconstruct the basis of a decision, hand over a case or assess the impact of a change in information.
- What do you get?
- A diagnosis of the decision process and a design of rules for working with knowledge and AI: sources, assumptions, decisions, roles and verification. This scope is already available.
- How will you use it?
- To review changes, hand over context and choose how to implement the rules in your organisation.
- What does the result depend on?
- On keeping sources and statuses up to date, access to materials and the people authorised to confirm decisions.
From rules to use in the process
Linking sources, assumptions and decisions is meant to limit reconstructing the history from scratch and to help verify AI recommendations. We agree the form of documentation, the handover and the checking of the result. Tools, integrations and implementation have a defined scope.
An out-of-date register can entrench a wrong context. We match the scope of what is recorded to the consequences of the decision and the ability to maintain it; documentation on its own does not settle responsibility.
Sample result: decision-and-change card
Sources and assumptions → arrangement with the appropriate status → responsibility → dependencies → condition for a repeat review.
Such material lets you see why an arrangement is in force, what challenges it and what should be checked. The form of documentation is agreed for the process.
See an example of a project scope change: a request to add a region to the project does not yet change the approved baseline. Once it is accepted, access, the estimate, the deadline and the acceptance criteria have to be reviewed, while keeping the still-valid arrangements of the first region.
How do we assess usefulness?
At acceptance we check the agreed requirements: reconstructing the basis and status of the decision, identifying the verifying person and reviewing the relevant dependencies while keeping the rules that remain valid. Separately, one can measure the active work on reconstructing a case, the calendar time taken to clarify it and the number of corrections at comparable complexity.
The scope in which ECOS is used is defined for the specific use case. Tools, AI models, integrations and any implementation are agreed according to the organisation's needs.