Design Review Executive Sheet

Purpose: One-page design assessment tool grounded in cost-displacement and constraint-dynamics vocabulary.

Posture: Responsibility-preserving, drift-aware, non-coercive. This is a diagnostic instrument, not a prescription.

Core Questions

1. Cost Placement

Where do costs fall? Are they borne by those who benefit, or displaced to others (users, systems, future states)?

2. Constraint Visibility

Are operational constraints made explicit, or hidden behind abstraction?

3. Drift Detection

How will the system detect when it departs from stated intent?

4. Responsibility Preservation

Does the design preserve human authorship and judgment, or substitute structure for decision-making?

5. Reversibility

Can decisions be revisited without catastrophic cost? What makes reversal legible?

6. Boundary Coherence

Are boundaries defined clearly enough to support critique without requiring doctrinal agreement?

7. Propagation Awareness

How do changes propagate? Are downstream effects made visible before commitment?

8. Non-Coercive Emergence

Does the design allow for adaptation without forcing premature closure?

Application

This sheet supports early-stage design review. It does not replace judgment, domain expertise, or stakeholder consultation.

Use: Read each question in context of the system under review. Flag gaps, ambiguities, or unexamined assumptions. Document findings. Iterate.

PortusSophia™ — methodical inquiry under constraint.