POSITIONING AND STANDARDS

The five spikes

Rogue builds, orphan systems, data leakage, one-way doors, key-person fault lines.

Definition

The five ways ungoverned AI hurts a business: rogue builds (systems no one approved), orphan systems (tools whose builder has gone), data leakage (company information in personal accounts), one-way doors (choices that cannot be undone), and key-person fault lines (capability that lives in one head).

Why it exists

Owners can feel these risks long before they can describe them. Naming them makes them discussable, checkable and closable.

Example

The spreadsheet-with-a-mind that only Dave understands is an orphan system in waiting. Dave resigns in March.

Change control

21 July 2026 - Drafted in Foundation Content v0.1.

Also in Positioning and standards

Certified consultant
Red Embed
Red Press
Single-player AI
Sovereign install
The 3 C’s
The 5 S’s
The Journalist Test

Referenced by

No published piece declares this term yet. The list fills itself as the corpus grows.