Cognitive Reapportionment and the Art of Letting Go: A Theoretical Framework for the Allocation of Decision Rights

Abstract

ABSTRACT We have entered an era where, in addition to us humans, systems can also think. It is imperative to decide how decision rights and authorities are allocated and distributed across interconnected co-cognitors: things that think. To address this question vital to the redesign of organizations, we reconceptualize cognitive reapportionment as the dynamic reallocation of decision rights and authorities across human and system co-cognitors capable of independent decision making. We articulate the Helix Model of Decision Journeys, wherein decision journeys, comprised of decision elements allocable to human or system co-cognitors, interweave and integrate business processes. The dynamic reapportionment of cognitive responsibilities across co-cognitors is dependent upon the type of scientific reasoning—deduction, induction, or abduction—at each decision element. We further propose two intertwined mechanisms for the art of letting go that facilitate the adoption of the Helix model. First, the nexus of omnipresent system co-cognitors collectively needs to evoke trust. Only when Technology Trust Thresholds are exceeded can decision making be reorganized and control relinquished to system co-cognitors. Second, the world of omnipresent cognitors will compel us to redesign, reprogram, and remix our workflow and business processes. Only through a purposeful effort to Redesign in the Remix Regime can the deduction-induction-abduction nature of decision tasks serve as the basis for their reapportionment.