Glossary: TDD Business Design Terms — Cascade Levels, Contracts, Executors, Signals

Methodology

Organizational Schema Theory (orgschema): A reverse-design TDD methodology where businesses are designed backward from customer experience goals using testable, version-controlled specifications where each operational layer validates the layer above it.
TDD Cascade: The six-level test hierarchy (L0-L5) that structures business specifications. Designed top-down from customer experience to sourcing. Validated bottom-up through CI/CD.
Reverse-Design: The methodology of starting from desired customer experience (L0 acceptance tests) and deriving all lower-level specifications backward. The opposite of bottom-up emergent design.
Fork: Copy the test suite, rewrite the implementation. The orgschema equivalent of franchise replication: same customer experience contracts, different local procedures.
Schema: What parameters exist and what to measure. Publishable. The methodology itself.
Data: Actual parameter values within the schema. Competitive moat. The specific business configuration.
Maturity Model (M0-M5): Progressive formalization from narrative documentation (M0) to fully validated specification with CI/CD (M5). Valuable at every level.

L0 — Customer Experience Contract: The acceptance test level. Defines what customers should perceive and feel. Three contract types: experience, constraint, commitment.
L1 — Signal Requirements: The integration test level. Defines what signals the business must emit to produce the desired customer perception. Uses SBT's 8 dimensions as specification language.
L2 — Process Contracts: The unit test level. Defines what processes must achieve (outcomes, quality gates). Executor-invariant: the contract stays the same regardless of who or what executes it.
L3 — Procedures: The implementation level. Defines how a specific executor achieves the contract. Changes when the executor type changes.
L4 — Input Specifications: The dependencies level. Defines materials, equipment, training, and other inputs required by procedures.
L5 — Sourcing Requirements: The infrastructure level. Defines supply chain specifications: where inputs come from, quality criteria, supplier requirements.

Contract: What must be achieved (the test). Defines required outcomes without specifying methods. Contracts are executor-invariant.
Experience Contract (L0_exp): Customer-derived acceptance test. Defines desired perception across SBT dimensions.
Constraint Contract (L0_con): Regulation or law imposed as an externally mandated acceptance test. Compliance is a feature, not overhead.
Commitment Contract (L0_com): Self-imposed organizational value enacted as a testable requirement. ESG, sustainability pledges, ethical sourcing standards.
Satisfaction Validation: The CI/CD pipeline that verifies each specification level satisfies the level above it. Six validation levels from schema to waste detection.
Continuous Certification: Certifying a commit hash, not an organization at a point in time. Every validated commit is a certification event.
Traceability: Every operational parameter traces upward through the cascade to the customer experience goal it serves. Parameters without upward trace are potential waste.

Executor: Who or what runs a procedure: human, machine, or hybrid. The contract stays the same; only the procedure changes.
Procedure: How a specific executor achieves a contract (the implementation). Different executors have different procedures for the same contract.
Signal: An observable emission from business operations that observers perceive. Classified across SBT's 8 dimensions.
Designed Signal: A signal intentionally specified and traceable to an L0 contract. Part of the specification.
Ambient Signal: A signal emitted by unspecified processes. Not intentionally designed. Contributes to perception but is not controlled.
D/A Ratio: Designed-to-Ambient signal ratio. Higher specification coverage produces more designed signals and fewer ambient ones. Measures intentionality of brand perception.
Reproduction (Machine Signal Mode): Machine executors reproduce signals faithfully as specified. No secondary signals. Minimal L1-L2 gap.
Reprocessing (Human Signal Mode): Human executors reprocess signals through personal priors. Emit secondary analogue signals (unspecifiable). The human premium.

Contract-Procedure Separation: The core TDD principle applied to business: contracts (tests) don't change when you swap the executor (implementation). ~75% of a typical specification is executor-invariant.
Forkability: The property of orgschema specifications that enables business replication by copying the test suite and rewriting the implementation for a new context.
Waste (Muda): Processes or parameters with no upward trace to an L0 contract. Detected by the CI/CD waste detection level. Analogous to dead code.
Organizational Protocol: The interface specification between SBT and Organizational Schema Theory. Defined by the 8x6 activation matrix (which orgschema levels activate which SBT dimensions) and bidirectional propagation rules.

See the TDD cascade overview for how these terms connect, the specification toolkit to explore the reference implementation, and the academic paper for formal foundations. Machine-readable version at /glossary.json.