Signal Response Summary

Signals do not all operate on the same timeline. Some require a response within a single weekly cadence. Others require pattern confirmation across multiple months before a capital decision is warranted. Acting too early on a slow signal produces noise. Acting too late on a fast signal produces cost.

This summary maps each signal to the threshold that makes it actionable, the cadence that owns the response, the nature of the response required, and the risk of delay.

Signal	Threshold for action	Cadence that owns response	Response required	Escalation risk if ignored
Marginal cost trend	Two consecutive quarters of increase confirms a structural trend. A single-quarter spike above 15% requires immediate monthly review to determine whether the cause is local variation or structural degradation.	Monthly diagnosis; quarterly capital decision	Identify architectural cause. Escalate to quarterly cadence with capital implication. Do not address in weekly cadence — this is a structural signal, not an operational one.	Delivery capacity erodes quarter by quarter. Each deferred response compounds the cost of eventual remediation.
Technical debt ratio	Above 25% of engineering capacity, or rising more than 3 points per quarter.	Monthly monitoring; quarterly remediation decision	Below 25%: monitor. Between 25—33%: monthly structural diagnosis required. Above 33%: quarterly capital decision required — remediation must be funded or delivery velocity decline is locked in.	Maintenance burden crowds out new capability. Above 33%, the system begins consuming itself.
Platform reuse rate	Two consecutive quarters of decline, or below 60%.	Monthly diagnosis; quarterly capital and governance decision	Two consecutive quarters of decline: diagnose cause in monthly cadence. Below 60%: escalate to quarterly — platform investment or governance enforcement required. Below 50%: treat as architectural emergency.	Local architecture becomes permanent. Fragmentation compounds integration cost and reduces the value of platform investment already made.
Integration complexity index	Rising for three consecutive quarters, or single-quarter spike above 20%.	Monthly pattern confirmation; quarterly capital decision	Three consecutive quarters of rise: structural diagnosis required. Single-quarter spike above 20%: immediate monthly cadence review regardless of prior trend — may indicate a bypass decision or unplanned dependency.	Integration overhead absorbs engineering capacity silently. By the time it is visible in delivery metrics, the structural cost has already compounded.
Delivery velocity	Declining for two consecutive quarters, or single-quarter decline above 10%.	Weekly observation; monthly structural diagnosis	Single quarter decline: observe and note cause in weekly cadence. Two consecutive quarters: escalate to monthly for structural diagnosis. If the decline is structurally caused — technical debt, platform gaps, integration overhead, or governance failure — escalate to quarterly for capital allocation and remediation sequencing.	Delivery slowdown becomes the baseline. Teams adapt to slower pace. The organization loses its reference point for what normal delivery performance looks like.
AI Performance	Outputs unreliable, unused, or not improving in production — sustained across a monthly cadence. Two or more AI initiatives underperforming against approved outcomes in the same period.	Weekly observation; monthly structural diagnosis	Diagnose in sequence: is it a model problem, a data problem, a workflow problem, or a feedback-loop problem? Most AI underperformance is a system-readiness problem, not a model problem. If structural — inconsistent data, fragmented architecture, unclear workflows — escalate to quarterly as a capital-readiness decision, not a model-tuning exercise.	AI investment continues to consume capital without becoming operating capability. Platform weakness is misdiagnosed as model failure. Structural overhead compounds beneath AI demand.