Mechanism health
Health is assessed per component — Absent, Partial, or Functioning — giving a diagnostic profile that points to specific interventions rather than a single pass/fail badge.
Mechanism health in Balcony is assessed at the component level, not the mechanism level. The distinction matters because "your mechanism is unhealthy" is not actionable; "your mechanism has no ownership and no metrics" is.
Per-component health
Each component — Inputs, Outputs, Objective, Tooling, Metrics, Ownership — carries one of three health states:
| State | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Absent | The component has not been configured. Nothing is documented. |
| Partial | The component has been started but is incomplete. For example, inputs are documented but none has been designated as the trigger. Or metrics exist but none has a defined target value. |
| Functioning | The component is present and adequately configured. |
The component-level states are visible in the mechanism editor and in the portfolio overview. This is the diagnostic profile: a mechanism where Tooling and Ownership are Absent while everything else is Functioning tells you a specific story about what needs to be addressed and what kind of intervention is needed.
What each component state means in practice
Inputs — Absent: The mechanism has no documented trigger or data sources. You cannot confirm when or whether it runs.
Inputs — Partial: Inputs are documented but there is no trigger. The mechanism may be reactive rather than proactive — it depends on someone knowing to start it rather than being initiated by a defined signal.
Outputs — Absent: The mechanism produces nothing documented. Even if it operates informally, there is no record that it ran or what it produced.
Objective — Absent: The mechanism is not linked to any governance control. It is an activity without a stated purpose in the governance framework.
Objective — Partial: A purpose statement exists but no controls have been linked. The mechanism may be real, but its regulatory grounding is not established.
Tooling — Absent: There is no documented process, platform, or playbook. The mechanism depends entirely on individual knowledge or informal practice.
Metrics — Absent: There is no way to confirm the mechanism is working. Evidence cannot be produced from a mechanism with no metrics.
Metrics — Partial: Metrics exist but have no target values. You can see that the mechanism ran; you cannot assess whether it ran adequately.
Ownership — Absent: No one is accountable for the mechanism. This is the most common predictor of governance degradation over time.
Overall mechanism status
The combination of component health states produces an overall mechanism status used in the portfolio view:
| Status | Condition |
|---|---|
| Functioning | All components are in a Functioning state |
| Partial | Core components (Inputs, Outputs, Tooling) are present, but some components are incomplete |
| Critical | One or more core components (Inputs, Outputs, or Tooling) are Absent |
The Critical status is not just "needs improvement" — it signals that the mechanism cannot be demonstrated to operate at all. A governance programme with Critical mechanisms is not in a position to produce compliance evidence for the controls those mechanisms are meant to support.
Reading the portfolio
The Mechanic home page shows all mechanisms in your workspace with their overall status and per-component badges. The portfolio view lets you:
- See which mechanisms are Functioning, Partial, or Critical at a glance.
- Filter by domain or control to focus on a specific governance territory.
- Spot patterns: if Ownership is absent across many mechanisms, that is a systemic governance problem, not an isolated one.
[Screenshot needed] PLACEHOLDER IMAGE: The Mechanic portfolio view showing several mechanism cards with their per-component health badges visible — some showing green Functioning badges, others amber Partial or red Absent
Acting on health findings
The diagnostic value of per-component health is that it points toward the right kind of intervention:
- Absent Tooling → requires building a process, not writing a policy
- Absent Ownership → requires an organisational decision about accountability
- Absent Metrics → requires defining what evidence will confirm the mechanism works
- Absent Inputs → requires identifying where the mechanism gets its data or triggers
A mechanism with a mix of Functioning and Absent components is more honest and more useful than one marked "compliant" by a single badge that does not distinguish between what exists and what does not.