The complexity budget is the organizational analogue of the individual restraint score (2.3A.3). Where the restraint score assesses personal commitments before acceptance, the complexity budget assesses institutional additions before encoding.
Run this assessment before the organization adds a mandate, product, policy, or structural layer. The assessment is not a veto — it is a structural evaluation that makes the cost of the addition visible before the cost is incurred.
The Assessment
Step 1 — Load Inventory
Before evaluating the proposed addition, inventory the organization's current governance load.
Current mandates: List every active mandate the organization maintains. For each: what does it require, who enforces it, when was it last reviewed?
Current policies: List every active policy. For each: who is responsible for compliance, what is the audit cadence, what was the last audit finding?
Current products and services: List every product or service the organization delivers. For each: what governance requirements does it create (regulatory, contractual, quality, support)?
Governance capacity: What resources — people, time, budget, attention — does the organization allocate to maintaining, enforcing, revising, and auditing its commitments? This is the denominator. If you cannot quantify it, estimate it. The estimate reveals more than the absence of one.
Load-to-capacity ratio: Current governance load divided by governance capacity. If the ratio is already strained — if the organization cannot audit compliance on its existing commitments — any addition will degrade the whole.
Step 2 — Proposed Addition Assessment
For the proposed addition, answer three questions.
Table 2.3C.2-1 — Complexity Budget Assessment
Three-question evaluation for proposed institutional additions
| Question | Assessment | Evidence |
|---|---|---|
| What load does this add? | Enumerate: enforcement requirements, audit cadence, staffing needs, training, exception handling, revision cycle. Express as a fraction of current governance capacity. | [Document the specific resource requirements] |
| What does this displace? | Name the existing commitment that will receive less governance attention if this addition proceeds. If the answer is "nothing," explain how governance capacity has expanded. | [Document what gives way or what capacity increase supports the addition] |
| When does this expire? | Specify the retirement trigger: a date, a metric threshold, or a condition that initiates the retirement evaluation. "Periodic review" without criteria is not a trigger. | [Document the specific trigger and the process that executes on it] |
Step 3 — Decision
Pass: All three questions answered with documented evidence, and the load-to-capacity ratio remains within the organization's defined tolerance. Proceed with the addition. File the assessment with the institutional charter (2.3C.1-1) as part of the governance record.
Conditional: One question cannot be answered satisfactorily. The addition may proceed only if the unanswered question is resolved within a defined timeframe. If unresolved, the addition is automatically suspended.
Decline: Two or more questions cannot be answered, or the addition would push the load-to-capacity ratio past the organization's defined tolerance. The addition does not proceed until the organization either retires existing commitments to make room or demonstrates expanded governance capacity.
Integration Points
- Scope-cap audit (2.3C.2-2): The complexity budget governs new additions; the scope-cap audit governs existing commitments. Together they form the organization's restraint practice.
- Institutional charter (2.3C.1-1): The charter defines the organization's mandate and scope boundaries. The complexity budget enforces those boundaries at the point of addition.
- Sunset schedule (2.2.5): The complexity budget requires a retirement trigger at creation. The sunset schedule provides the review mechanism for executing that trigger.
- Organization evidence pack (2.3C.4-3): Completed complexity budget assessments are part of the evidence pack — they document the organization's restraint practice over time.
Change Log
- 19 Mar 26 — Initial draft (Charisma). Three-step assessment: load inventory, proposed addition evaluation (load, displacement, retirement), and pass/conditional/decline decision framework. Connects to individual restraint score (2.3A.3), institutional charter (2.3C.1-1), sunset schedule (2.2.5), and organization evidence pack (2.3C.4-3).