Examine a disputed basis for requiring work

Use this when participants understand the requested work but disagree about why one of them may require it of another. A broken tool can prevent permissible work. A clear request can exceed the requester’s authority. A history of unfulfilled undertakings can undermine reliance on a new one. Ask which ground the person is giving: another explanation of the work’s value will not by itself repair any of these conditions. More than one question may need an answer.

For a disputed requirement, make the claimed ground explicit: under which arrangement may this person require that person to perform this action, for this purpose and in these conditions? Obtain the provision or other basis being relied on and the facts that make it applicable. First establish whether the arrangement recognises those roles and includes this kind of work. Then check whether these people occupy the relevant roles for this act, whether the utterance is a requirement or advice, and whether its scope and time are covered. Where requirements conflict for this action, establish which applicable precedence rule or independently authorized decision can settle that conflict. The critical questions for arguments from deontic authority develop this separation between an authority relationship and a particular directive. Use the questions that can change the present answer.

Ask the participants to identify the disputed connection. They may disagree about a fact, the provision’s meaning, its application here, or whether the arrangement should be changed. Bring the relevant text and facts into the discussion. An uncertain domain interpretation may need a qualified contribution through A.15.9; listing authority questions does not supply that expertise. If the applicable provision excludes the requested action, explain that limit to the requester and develop a narrower request when it would still serve the work. If it applies but its consequences are contested, use the preceding comparison of means and affected concerns to develop a proposed revision. State who may decide that revision and what act would make it effective. Discussing its merits and changing the arrangement are different results.

A claim that work was already owed needs the same attention. Recover the actual undertaking, assignment or other instituting basis and the rule under which it created this person’s duty. A.2.8:4.4–4.5 explains why a role description or a record of a claimed obligation is insufficient on its own. If that basis is unknown, leave the duty claim unresolved: uncertainty establishes neither the duty nor its absence. Preserve independently established obligations whose conditions still hold.

Return the answer to the work. Name what can now be requested, decided or performed, the person who may make a needed decision, and any condition still preventing it. When authority or the applicable rule remains unresolved, choose only a continuation supported independently of that disputed premise, or defer the dependent action. Use applicable safety and interim-work rules when delay itself has consequences. A participant may end voluntary discussion without accepting the proposal; any established obligation needs its own permitted revision or release. If agreement cannot be reached, retain the precise disagreement and the basis needed to reconsider it. A claimed title, persistence or apparent assent under pressure supplies no missing decision authority.

This change of subject is informed by Dietz and Mulder’s Enterprise Ontology, §§8.2.1 and 8.2.6: participants can question the norms of their interaction, and an attempted revision can leave an earlier commitment unchanged. Enterprise Design Fundamentals, §6.2.6, also distinguishes disputes about the requested product from disputes about rightness or sincerity. The applicable arrangement supplies the particular authority and revision conditions; these distinctions do not impose one transaction protocol on every conversation.

Reporting: a claimed extension of authority

Use the reporting agreement developed in the purchase case below: the operations manager may release specified current-entry fields for the trial, while named error histories retain their separate protection. Now suppose a manager says, “I am responsible for reporting, so send the supplier the named histories.” The worker accepts the need for a checked handover but disputes that conclusion. Ask which provision extends this manager’s reporting authority to that disclosure. Under the stated agreement, responsibility for reporting does not supply the missing extension.

The current-entry extract remains an available proposal: the operations manager can authorize the listed fields, the provider can prepare them, and the supervisor can allocate work from confirmed information while the data owner retains the correction trace. Their decisions and contributions are still needed. The worker’s objection does not cancel the established reporting duty, and the supervisor’s need does not authorize the broader export. This answer returns to the trial arrangement rather than requiring agreement about every value at stake.

Change the premise. The manager says that a later amendment authorized the export. Obtain the amendment, establish who could make it effective, and check its purpose, people, fields and period. A verified applicable amendment changes the permission question; compare the changed use and affected concerns before selecting the continuation. If the amendment cannot be established, its claimed extension remains unresolved. Continue the earlier limited handover only while its own authority, resources and receiving conditions still hold. If the dispute concerns who may amend the agreement, return that exact question through the agreement’s decision procedure; an office name alone does not settle it. A proposal to adopt an amendment is not evidence that it already took effect.

An asserted earlier undertaking

Suppose a purchaser tells a service team, “You already promised today’s extract.” The only available message is a draft offer marked as awaiting the service owner’s approval. In this constructed arrangement, only that owner can commit the team, and an approved work order specifying the delivery institutes its duty. The draft does not establish that duty. Other communications may exist, so neither the purchaser’s assertion nor the missing approval settles whether a commitment was made. Ask for the approved order or another basis recognized by the arrangement.

While that question is open, do not plan the dependent report as though the asserted delivery were established. The separately authorized internal extract may still support the handover if it can arrive in time; otherwise return the missing input and timing to the person responsible for the reporting arrangement. This preserves useful work without declaring either that the service team owes the delivery or that it is released from an obligation.

Now an approved order covering this team, extract and day is found. The duty’s basis is established, but the team reports unavailable capacity. The question becomes restoration or a permitted change to delivery. Under the case’s rule, a capacity shortage does not cancel the order; revising the delivery time requires the service owner’s and purchaser’s agreement. Proposing a delay does not yet revise the order; if agreement fails, its duty remains while the delivery problem and its consequences still need handling. Use MKT.7 to address an owed service contribution and its consequences; the purchase case below follows a missing input through the reporting work. Confirmation of a duty is not confirmation that the extract will arrive.

An ordinary request outside the offer

In a constructed pizzeria case, the offer covers food and the restaurant has made no undertaking to obtain footwear. A customer asks the waiter to buy sandals and claims that being a customer entitles them to that service. Clarifying the offer identifies the unsupported extension: the customer may ask, but this arrangement gives no footwear obligation. The waiter can decline without persuading the customer to prefer a narrower offer. Help finding a shop is optional. If both already understand this boundary, a brief answer suffices.

A separate concierge offer changes the inquiry. Read its actual scope and any undertaking made under it; neither the word customer nor the restaurant setting decides the result. If an authorized concierge promise has already created a duty, use the preceding undertaking-and-revision reasoning. The initial freedom to decline a service cannot establish release from that later duty.