{
  "handle": "OptionVectorPlanning",
  "ref": "OptionVectorPlanning#c64f",
  "stub": "c64f",
  "semaId": "sema:OptionVectorPlanning#mh:SHA-256:c64f9e78a045da1a75c8e59f68c4130c75306786196f314513197bd08db9d7ba",
  "layer": "Society",
  "category": "Coordination",
  "gloss": "Plan resources as a forecast, plan tasks as options that stay open at every level",
  "mechanism": "Separate two predictions that a Gantt chart merges: the long-range resources a goal needs, which should be forecast as precisely as possible, and the exact tasks that will spend them, which should stay free to change. Map the work as a preferred path with option vectors branching at decision points, each with an activation cost. As a decision point approaches, information about an option's real value becomes reliable, and the option is activated if it beats the preferred path, which collects the {{information_dividend}}. Options exist at every level, because a manager's non-negotiable milestone is one level up a preferred option. A plan is judged by its counterfactual curve: the salient options it kept alive, even unused.",
  "invariants": [
    "Resource forecasts and task sequences are planned separately",
    "Options exist at every level of zoom; the fixed sequence is an artefact of the chart"
  ],
  "failureModes": [
    "A rigid schedule across many teams whose availability is uneven, so conflicts become certain as the team count grows",
    "Locking scope to protect an estimate and losing the value the estimate was meant to enable",
    "Treating unused options as waste and dropping the capacity to respond"
  ],
  "ring": 1,
  "tier": 2,
  "aliases": {
    "information_dividend": "InformationDividend"
  },
  "buildsOn": [
    {
      "handle": "InformationDividend",
      "type": "references",
      "alias": "information_dividend",
      "url": "/knowledge-graph/InformationDividend/",
      "json": "/knowledge-graph/InformationDividend.json"
    }
  ],
  "usedBy": [],
  "sources": {
    "research": [],
    "works": [
      {
        "kind": "book",
        "label": "On the Origin of Risk",
        "note": "(Timlett 2025), ch. 7 (Vector Option Timeline, Gantt chart limits)",
        "url": "/research/on_the_origin_of_risk/"
      }
    ],
    "homePage": false
  },
  "url": "/knowledge-graph/OptionVectorPlanning/",
  "graphUrl": "/knowledge-graph#OptionVectorPlanning",
  "directory": "/knowledge-graph/patterns.json"
}