Execution

Realize the chosen direction in practice while keeping the course of execution connected to the reasoning behind the change.

What it is

This page describes what the Execution function does within the Intent Loop. The element itself is defined on its own page.

The element itself is defined on Execution.

In the loop

Execution receives a chosen direction and produces the realized state, which in turn produces the outcomes the change actually delivers. It sits between Direction and Validation, and it is where most of the time, the money and the people are.

It is also where the reasoning behind the change is furthest away from the decisions being made. A direction cannot anticipate every circumstance, so realizing one requires continuous judgment about how to proceed within what has been established. A technical constraint appears. A workaround is proposed. The discussion turns to effort, time and delivery risk. Each decision can be sound on its own terms while the accumulation moves the work away from what the change was for.

Most of what execution encounters can be handled inside the established direction. Some of it cannot, and the difficulty is telling the two apart. Significant divergence, or evidence that challenges an assumption the direction rests on, means reasoning has to move back upstream: to the direction, and sometimes to the intent. Reconsideration can go as far up as the evidence warrants.

How well the direction is realized is not itself a matter of intent integrity. A team can execute badly for reasons that have nothing to do with reasoning. What belongs to intent integrity here is the quality of the judgments made along the way, and above all the continuity that keeps those judgments connected to the direction and the intent behind them.

Vulnerability

Execution is where reasoning continuity is lost. It is lost when the work drifts from the chosen direction and nobody registers that the drift is significant, or when evidence emerges that bears on the reasoning behind the direction and never gets connected back to it.

Silent drift is one form of this, and the most difficult to catch, because the work continues to look reasonable against the things people check it against: the plan, the specification, the scope, the deadline.

Intent tracing is the practice that addresses it.

Lost reasoning continuity. Intent tracing is the practice that addresses it.

Guiding question

Can we explain how the course of execution, and what we learn during it, relate to the direction and intent, and can we recognize when earlier reasoning should be reconsidered?

Related

• Execution is one of the five functions of The Intent Loop, and corresponds to execution, one of the three fundamental elements of change.
• It follows the Direction function and precedes the Validation function.
• Its characteristic vulnerability is lost reasoning continuity, of which Silent drift is one form.
• Intent tracing is the practice for this function. It reduces the expected execution gap arising from lost continuity.