Integrated Value Architecture · Research and publications
Make sure you're ready before the decision, not after.
IVA studies what organizations need before a major decision can responsibly move: reliable evidence, clear authority, real capacity and funding, named responsibility, and a record people can review later. It also asks what changes when AI can search across systems, connect far more context, and act at machine speed.
RESEARCH POSITION / 001
A decision is not ready because the meeting ended.
It is ready when people can show what the decision is, which evidence matters, who has authority, what time and money exist, who owns the next action, and when the choice must be reviewed. IVA calls that decision readiness.
The old information model assumed people would search, interpret, and move records manually. AI tools and agents can now search across systems, call other tools, move data, trigger work, and take action. That changes what organizations must decide about access, authority, human review, evidence, and the ability to stop or reverse an action.
See the research definitionThe working model
Keep the evidence, authority, resources, tradeoffs, and follow-through together.
The model asks five questions before action, then records what mattered, what was decided, what people committed to do, and what should trigger another review.
Know what information counts
Keep source, relevance, trust, access, retention, and deletion rules visible.
→02Keep unlike effects visible
Money, operations, capacity, learning, and external effects should not erase one another.
→03Keep one decision understandable
Keep its question, evidence, authority, resources, options, tradeoffs, and commitments in one reviewable record.
→04Know what must be true before action
Evidence, authority, capacity, funding, and responsibility determine whether work can responsibly begin.
→Research map
Start with the question.
Each concept has one canonical page with its definition, source record, related terms, and links to the next relevant question.
What does IVA ask about one major decision?
It checks money, operations, staff capacity, learning, and effects on customers, communities, and other people outside the organization.
Read the model →Five separate viewsWhy review money, operations, workload, learning, and outside effects separately?
A gain in one area should not erase a loss in another. Each view keeps its own evidence and review questions.
See the five views →Concentrated approval powerWhat happens when one department controls the evidence and approvals?
Requests pile up in one lane, other experts must translate their work to count, decisions slow down, and hidden correction work grows.
Read the definition →Recording nonfinancial problemsHow can workload, backlog, lost knowledge, or outside harm be recorded before they become financial losses?
The research proposes evidence rules for recording persistent nonfinancial gains and losses in the area where they occur.
Read the proposed method →Information and AIWhat information should AI be allowed to use?
Organizations need rules for source, trust, relevance, access, retention, deletion, and which person may authorize an action.
Read what AI changes →One decision recordWhat should be recorded for one major decision?
IVA uses the research term Decision Passport for a record of the question, evidence, authority, options, resources, commitments, review conditions, and outcome.
Read the research definition →Plain definitionsWhat does each IVA research term mean?
The glossary defines every named concept and states how it is used, what evidence it needs, and what it does not prove.
Use the glossary →Five separate views
No single score hides the tradeoffs.
People review money, operations, staff capacity, learning, and outside effects separately so one reported gain does not erase a loss somewhere else.
See how the five views work →Financial
Money, assets, liabilities, revenue, cost, restrictions, and financial obligations.
↗02SVUoOperational
Reliability, flow, quality, continuity, handoffs, backlog, and service performance.
↗03SVUcCapacity
Labor, time, attention, infrastructure, redundancy, resilience, and sustainable load.
↗04SVUlLearning + innovation
Adaptation, experimentation, institutional memory, transfer, and controlled change.
↗05SVUeExternalities + equity
Stakeholder consequence, access, burden, legitimacy, environment, and obligation.
↗The rule is simple: a gain in one area does not erase a loss in another.
Self-published architecture record
Read the complete proposed rules and claim limits.
The publication titled IVA Governance Architecture Standard v1.1 is IVA LLC's self-published architecture record. It states the proposed evidence, recording, reporting, role, and review rules for the five areas. It is not an accredited consensus standard, certification, or third-party assurance scheme.
- Five separate areas of value
- Evidence required before recording a gain or loss
- Records for changes that persist over time
- Nonfinancial units that cannot be converted into money
- Rules for identifying incomplete or misleading records
- A smaller implementation option for very small organizations
The public record explains the proposed rules and boundaries. It does not publish IVA's protected scoring, audit, client, or implementation tools.
Working papers
Read the papers, DOIs, SSRN records, and citation text.
Each working paper has a publication page, DOI, SSRN record, abstract, suggested citation, and links to the concepts it defines.
Internal Governance Monopoly
A working concept for structural failure when one internal domain gains disproportionate authority over value, evidence, resources, and legitimate action.
DOI 10.2139/ssrn.6444178 ↗IVA Working Paper 001 · 2026Beyond Financial Dominance
A multi-ledger architecture that gives financial, operational, capacity, learning, and external value independent standing.
DOI 10.2139/ssrn.6050034 ↗Research indexPublications, sources, citations, and open questions.
Open the research record →You are here
Research + publications
Definitions, working papers, evidence and claim limits, the self-published architecture record v1.1, comparisons, citations, and open research questions.
Explore the architecture →Need practical help?
Choose the operating problem, then choose the level.
The commercial site has two buyer tracks: IVA Decision Architecture for complex organizational decisions and Rule 52 for workplace AI use. Each track has Start, Triage, Sprint, and Sustain levels.
Compare applied pathwaysFounder + research lead
Evan Micheal Foster
IVA draws on public administration, organizational governance, finance, operations, and policy implementation. It asks whether a decision has documented authority, evidence, capacity, funding, obligations, owners, and review dates before implementation begins.
Follow the work
Keep the context that matters. Govern what may be used, retained, restricted, or deleted.
Get practical notes on stuck decisions, organizational context, AI use, and what the research can and cannot yet prove.
Join the IVA Decision Brief