Accountability¶
Accountability is the ability of an organization (or a person) to be responsible and answerable for actions, decisions, and outcomes.
In practice, accountability requires:
- Clarity: who is accountable for what, and why.
- Evidence: facts and context that justify decisions.
- Consequences: commitments, obligations, and follow-up.
In an Enterprise Knowledge Graph (EKG), accountability becomes much easier when it is modelled explicitly:
- Assignments: connect roles and people to activities, assets, and obligations (e.g. via a RASCI/RACI matrix).
- Traceability: connect outcomes and decisions back to the data, models, policies, and actors involved.
- Auditability: keep provenance, lineage, and governance artefacts queryable and explainable.
Accountability becomes concrete when responsibilities are tied to explicit business intent:
- Outcomes define the "why" and success criteria.2
- Use Cases define the scope and capability to deliver outcomes. 3
- Personas define who (people and systems) is involved and in what capacity.4
- Stories define requirements in business language: "As a Persona, I need [capability], so that I can [Outcome]." 5
- Workflows sequence stories into end-to-end processes that deliver outcomes.6
Accountability is tightly connected to transparency and fairness: if decisions cannot be explained, or if responsibilities are unclear, trust breaks down.
See also the theme page for a broader discussion of accountability and automated policy management in the EKG context.