NovusLens
Changing a service can affect teams you never expected. NovusLens is a digital twin of your organisation. It maps your teams, systems, suppliers and AI agents, with the evidence behind each connection. Novus-i2’s advisers help you interpret what it shows.
The organisation and the service change in the film are fictional.Opening photograph by stephen cubitt on Unsplash.
01 / The problem
One question, followed through this page.Imagine your organisation is replacing a customer service system. The organisation chart names the teams and their reporting lines. It does not show who waits on whom.
Operations relies on a data team. That team depends on a supplier. An AI agent also uses the service. Their records sit in different places, and each describes only part of the picture.
Before changing anything, you need to see those relationships and who answers for them. This example is fictional, and it runs through the rest of the page.
02 / The solution
NovusLens brings your teams, systems, suppliers and AI agents into one model you can inspect: the twin. Each connection shows that one part needs something from another.
Select a team or service to see its recorded owner, its dependencies and the evidence behind each one. In our example, selecting the data team shows who answers for it. It also shows the team’s links to customer service and the supplier.
The twin reflects the records supplied to it. Missing information stays visible as a question to investigate.
The person recorded as answering for the team, kept apart from the person who runs it day to day.
What the team relies on, and what relies on it. In the example: customer service and the supplier.
The records behind each relationship, with their source and date, ready to open.
03 / Bring in the evidence
Each kind of record you hold establishes a different part of the picture. A chart alone cannot show how work moves between teams.
Identifies the teams and their reporting lines.
Explain who is responsible for what, as the organisation has written it down.
Supported cloud and datacentre exports describe the systems your teams depend on.
Configured connections bring in records of what happened, such as incidents, tickets and workflow runs.
People add what they know about their own work, recorded in their name.
Imports read company files, and configured connections bring in operational records. NovusLens turns structural records into teams, systems and relationships you can inspect. It keeps the supporting evidence beside that picture, so you can return to the source.
04 / Understand the support
Read the label before you read the claim.Every claim in NovusLens carries an evidence label. The label says what kind of support stands behind the claim, so you can judge how far to rely on it.
Somebody stated it.
A team says recovery takes one hour.
A document supports it.
The recovery plan states the same one-hour target. It does not show that the target was met.
A source recorded an observation.
An incident record shows that recovery took two hours, on one occasion.
Read each source, its date and what it covers. The label describes support, not certainty.
Every claim your organisation acts on sits on a ladder of evidence.
05 / Investigate differences
Those different accounts are useful. A recovery target and an incident outcome describe different things, so neither replaces the other. NovusLens keeps both, with their sources, so people can investigate the difference.
NovusLens also surfaces gaps in recorded ownership and disagreements about structure as findings. A finding is an item to review. NovusLens never decides which account is right: the people involved examine the evidence and decide.
06 / Keep organisational knowledge
Relationships tell only part of the story. The Knowledge library holds procedures, definitions and written accounts, linked to the teams they concern. For this service change, it can keep the recovery procedure and explain the supplier’s role.
Each entry keeps its author, date and audience. A written account remains its author’s statement, and it can be challenged or withdrawn. Entries can support the answers to questions.
Find the record, document or entry that mentions a team or service.
Keep procedures, definitions and explanations with their authors, so the reasoning outlasts a change of people.
Work out how teams, systems, suppliers and agents depend on each other, so you can follow a change through them.
07 / Ask a practical question
Ask who is accountable for the service, and NovusLens answers from the records you are permitted to see. Each statement links to its sources, and the answer says what it does not establish.
Choose the whole organisation or one team, then type your question.
NovusLens checks your access and gathers only the records your role can see.
A configured AI model helps interpret the records when the question needs it.
Each statement links to its sources. The answer says what it does not establish.
In our example, the answer names Operations and cites the service ownership record. You can bring that record into the discussion, so everyone can see what supports the answer. A generated answer is not an approved decision.
08 / Assess a possible change
Three separate readings, never blended into one number.Complexity, Agility and Recoverability (C/A/R) describe the structure of a team or service as it is now. They are measurements, not forecasts, and each follows a written local rule and the evidence available.
Reads the systems a team or service relies on and how tightly they are linked. Tighter links mean more changes to coordinate.
Reads how long changes take and how often they fail. Both come from records your organisation already keeps.
Reads restoration times and whether recovery has been tested. In our example, the two-hour incident is part of that evidence.
Critical path length is the weight of the longest chain of dependencies in the twin. Each handoff is weighted by how much coordination it needs. NovusLens screens call this figure the dependency-chain index.
Explore a change recalculates the index for one assumed change, such as a looser handoff between Operations and the data team. The comparison helps people discuss trade-offs. It is an index, not an estimate of time or money saved.
The measures describe teams, services and how they connect. They do not score individuals. A measure is useful only when people trust it and can challenge the account behind it.
09 / Include AI agents
When an AI agent takes on work, someone must answer for its outcome. NovusLens keeps what an agent can do, what it may do and who answers for it as separate records.
Understand the capabilities of people, teams, systems and agents.
Make decision rights, permissions and operating boundaries explicit.
Connect decisions and findings to accountable people.
NovusLens compares those records with the activity your own systems report. Where ownership is missing or the accounts differ, you have a specific question for the people responsible. Put it to them before assigning more work. NovusLens never runs or controls your agents, and it never issues a compliance verdict.
When automation takes over the work, who retains the understanding? Richard examines the risk of losing organisational judgement, memory and the ability to change.
Read article: Enterprise AI: in three years, nobody will know why the agent does it that way (opens in a new tab)What happens when agents coordinate in ways their designers did not anticipate? A practical look at agent fleets, trustworthy records and control over the systems we depend on.
Read article: Enterprise AI risk: 1,200 agents were told to work alone. They built a message board instead. (opens in a new tab)10 / Use the result
Return to the service change. The affected teams, the supplier and the agent’s owner are now visible, with the records behind each connection.
The data team’s owner, the supplier’s representative and the agent’s owner all need to take part.
A management brief sets out the evidence. The recovery plan says one hour. The incident record says two.
The service owner reviews the difference with Operations and the supplier. Everyone examines the same basis, and the decision is recorded with its sources.
When a new supplier record arrives, revisit the affected relationships beside the earlier review.
A service change reaches beyond the team leading it. NovusLens shows the recorded dependencies, so you can involve the right owners before the proposal goes to review.
The organisation chart, a team’s own account and a division record can place the same team differently. NovusLens keeps each source distinct, and Novus-i2’s advisers help you examine the date and scope of each. You gain a question to resolve before you rely on the picture.
The decision, its sources and the explanation behind it stay with the twin. When people, suppliers or agents change, the next decision starts from what you already know.
11 / How an engagement works
The route depends on the engagement.Novus-i2 is the advisory firm. NovusLens is the product we build. An engagement starts with our advisers, who look at how decisions are made and who gains or loses from a change.
Most engagements are designed to end with you running your own twin, on your own infrastructure and from your own records. You keep the records, the Knowledge library and the twin.
Advisory work continues alongside it. Our advisers review what the twin shows, help frame the management question and support the people who must decide.
Today’s main output: an advisory review of whether your organisation is ready to use AI agents. It covers who may authorise their actions and who answers for the results.
It can accompany the assessment. It sets out the Capability, Authority and Responsibility recorded for your AI agents.
NovusLens is built in stages: the first has passed our own acceptance checks, and the second is built, with our in-house checks next.
Engagements today are advisory-led, and they move towards you running the twin as the stages are completed.
A demonstration takes about 12 minutes on a working installation of NovusLens. It follows one question through Meridian Grid, a fictional demonstration organisation in which every person, company and source is invented.
The 17 principles shape what NovusLens does and what it refuses to do. Each has a one-line summary and a short explanation.
Read the principlesThe NovusLens documentation explains each concept, the architecture and how to install and run a twin, with films and diagrams.
Read the documentation (opens in a new tab)Essays by Dr Richard Nicholson on change, coordination, knowledge, evidence, accountability and who counts in an organisation.
Read the series (opens in a new tab)Let’s talk
Talk to us about one consequential decision, such as replacing a service, changing a supplier or handing work to an AI agent.
Tell us about your organisation and the challenge you are working through.