Ishi and Kettei

Ishi and Kettei are related, and the names overlap in one place. Three uses are worth keeping apart.

• Ishi, determined intentThe Japanese word 意志, usually rendered as will, determination or intent. Ishi is the moment vague intent sharpens into a decision the person is committed to defending: named, bounded, held for a set horizon and owned by one person. An Ishi is not delegated.
• The first phase of the Ishi SpiralThe Decide phase. In Ishi: The Discipline of Determined Intent the first phase is named Ishi. A changeover is planned in which the first phase takes the name Kettei (決定) in the second edition of Ishi and in Kettei. Until that changeover, the published name of the first phase stays Ishi. During the transition both namings are correct: the published book uses Ishi, and the second edition and Kettei use Kettei.
• Kettei, governed intentDecision governance for organisations, the subject of the forthcoming Kettei: The Discipline of Governed Intent. Each consequential decision has a named Owner who governs it through its lifecycle, with abort criteria and a validity boundary set in advance. The decision is treated as a governable object with 7 properties: ownership, scope and exclusion, reversibility, lifecycle state, coupling dependency, abort criteria and validity boundary.

One example shows the line between Ishi and Kettei. A person deciding to finish a chapter revision by Sunday holds the whole decision alone: the intent, the boundaries and the condition for stopping. An Ishi Card is enough. A programme that commits a company to a new platform spreads the same decision across many owners who depend on each other. Personal honesty does not travel from one desk to the next, so Kettei adds structure: a Watchcard for each steering decision and a Watchlist for the endeavour.

Kettei keeps the Ishi Spiral at its centre. Decide, Forge, Persist and Reflect stay in place, with the terms anchored in Ishi. Ishi and Kettei are separate books for separate readers. Ishi is for personal self-governance, and Kettei is for decisions whose intent is held across more than one head.