Instruments is the measurement layer of OrbaOS. It assesses coordination capital in an organisation and produces three governed numbers a board can defend: the Coordination Capital Ratio (CCR), the structural floor, and the discretionary gap between the two. The method follows The Coordination Capital Doctrine, and every figure on every page is traceable back to the inputs it came from and the chapter that justifies it.
What it is, in one paragraph
A measurement service for CFOs, Audit Committees, and Risk Committees. It takes workforce, floor, and classification data — supplied through a standard Excel template — and produces a board-ready governance report: the CCR, the structural floor, the unit-of-analysis classification, and a full audit trail of who produced what and when.
What it measures
- CCR — the Coordination Capital Ratio for the assessment.
- Structural floor — the level below which coordination capital cannot be defended for an organisation of this shape.
- Discretionary gap — the distance between current CCR and the floor. This is the number boards actually argue about.
- Classification — the unit of analysis governed per assessment (per Chapters 4 and 7 of the doctrine).
- Drift — baselines plus snapshot history. A scheduled check raises alerts when active baselines have moved away from the latest CCR run, so a quiet drift gets attention before the next reporting cycle.
How it earns its keep
- One ingest, one source of truth. Workforce, floor, and classification data feed a single assessment. CCR, floor, and classification are produced from those same inputs — so the audit pack and the board pack cannot disagree.
- Publishing is a governed act. A report only becomes "published" after a named reviewer signs it off. The reviewer's identity and the timestamp are written to a permanent log, alongside any later changes, so the board pack always has a defensible chain of custody.
- Board pack in one click. A single export pulls the full set of signed-off artefacts into one zip, plus a read-only PDF of the report. Drafts cannot be exported as a board pack — only signed-off versions can.
- Assistive AI, never on the math. An optional drafting assistant helps draft reports read well; the CCR, floor, and classification figures are produced deterministically and the model never touches them. Once a report is published, the assistant is switched off — so no narrative changes can quietly accompany a signed-off number.
Where it fits in the room
- CFO — uses the discretionary gap to defend reserves, the comp envelope, and reorganisation cost as a single number with a paper trail.
- Audit Committee — relies on the audit log and the in-app methodology page to satisfy "show your work" without anyone having to read code.
- Risk Committee — watches drift over time. Floor changes themselves are change-controlled, so any move in the structural floor leaves its own paper trail.
Operating notes from the field
- Roles matter more than features. Admin, Analyst, Reviewer, and Viewer map cleanly to who-can-do-what. Getting these right at onboarding removes 90% of "can I…?" questions later.
- Viewer is read-only by design. No data exports, no draft assistant — but the PDF of a published report is allowed. That is the artefact the board actually sees.
- Organisation scope is real. A user from one organisation cannot see another's data, and any attempt is logged and refused rather than silently returning an empty result. Treat those refusals as a feature, not a bug.
- Floor changes are change-controlled. Don't "just edit the floor." File the change through the floor-change workflow and let an Admin or Reviewer approve it — the move belongs in the audit narrative.
- Baselines drift. Re-baseline after material reorganisations. Otherwise alerts get noisy and the board stops reading them.
What it is not
- Not an HR system. Workforce data is read in, not owned here.
- Not a forecasting tool. CCR and floor describe the current governed state; scenario work belongs upstream.
- Not an AI product. The assistant drafts prose around governed numbers; it does not produce them.
Further reading
- The Coordination Capital Doctrine — primary source for CCR, floor, and classification.
- In-app Methodology and Methodology → Assistive AI.