Quentin CasaresData and AI leadership for regulated growth
Frameworks

Reference patterns · not client work

Framework patterns

A framework is a movement, not a structure. It has a start, a finish, and a gate between each pair of stages, and each stage should hand the next one an artefact rather than a conversation. Both sequences below are blank patterns: the shape is real, the organisation is not.

Contents
2 frameworks
Status
Illustrative

The sequences

Two sample frameworks

Each is drawn stage by stage, with the gate between each pair marked. Read one left to right and ask what artefact leaves each stage. If a stage produces only a meeting, it is not a stage.

FW 01

Diagnose, frame, decide, embed

Purpose. A four-stage advisory sequence for turning a fragmented evidence estate into decision infrastructure. Each stage hands the next one an artefact rather than a conversation.

  1. Diagnose

    Inspect the evidence: data estate, governance posture, reporting quality, and the specific commercial or regulatory decisions currently failing.

  2. Frame

    Separate immediate control risks from strategic architecture choices, and translate technical gaps into board-readable consequences.

  3. Decide

    Agree sequencing: what must be fixed first, where to invest, and which vendor or platform decisions can be deferred at no cost.

  4. Embed

    Hand over a 90-day plan with named ownership, governance forums, and milestones that survive past the end of the engagement.

This one is published with evidence

FW 02

The data confidence ladder

Purpose. A five-stage route to signing off a regulatory number without a reconciliation project standing behind it. Shaped by BCBS 239 expectations, though the sequence holds anywhere a number has to be defended.

  1. Identify

    Fix the population of critical data elements and give each one an owner and an agreed definition. Contested definitions are resolved here or they resurface at attestation.

  2. Trace

    Prove lineage from source to report for each element, including the transformations. Undocumented hops are recorded as gaps rather than assumed to be fine.

  3. Control

    Install and automate the controls that detect a breach of tolerance, positioned as close to source as the architecture allows.

  4. Attest

    Owners formally confirm quality on a fixed cycle, with open issues declared rather than netted off. An attestation with no exceptions in it is usually a process failure.

  5. Report

    A standing view of confidence by element and by report, produced from the control estate itself rather than assembled by hand each quarter.

The other half

Structures live in a separate area

Layered target operating models, the AI risk tiering ladder and the decision-rights grid are not sequences, so they are not here. They answer what has to stand still rather than what happens next, and they have their own area.

Go to operating models