A model for routing decisions to the right owner by classifying which "altitude" they belong to, rather than letting every decision get relitigated by everyone.
Leadership's job is to translate Level 1 into explicit Level 2 priorities and trade-offs; teams then execute Level 3 with full autonomy inside those constraints. See Three Conditions for Empowerment and High-Alignment/High-Autonomy Model for related autonomy framing.
If executives keep relitigating Level 3 decisions (design details, implementation choices), it is usually a symptom that Level 1 strategy was never made clear — the org is compensating for a missing strategic decision by micromanaging execution. Compare Air Sandwich (Strategic Context Gap).
Related to but distinct from The Decision Stack (Eriksson) (Eriksson's stack model) and Three-Branch Responsibility Logic — this framework separates decisions by altitude/consequence rather than by branch or layer of process.
Underpins Input/Decision Separation and Product Democracy: Consensus Decision-Making as Anti-Pattern.
A diagnostic Golubovski flags: if execution-level (Level 3) decisions keep getting reopened and relitigated, that's usually a sign that strategy (Level 1) was never actually made clear — not a sign that execution needs tighter oversight. Read the symptom one level up before adding process at the level where it appeared.
Из тем: The Product Operating Model