Achieve Australia — Systems Model · Built from achieve-bidirectional-flow-audit.md
Two Cones: Does It Flow Both Ways?
The impossible-cone fidget toy works because two independent spirals — cut to matching pitch — pass through each other smoothly, in either direction. Applied to Achieve: one spiral is Governance, the other is the information every part of the business needs to do its job. They're supposed to mesh continuously, both ways. Before drawing that as a picture, every touchpoint already evidenced across this engagement was sorted by direction and checked against what actually happens.
Full audit, citations, and method: feedback-loops/achieve-bidirectional-flow-audit.md. This page is the visual layer; the markdown is the source of record.
The tally, stated plainly
Nine top-down touchpoints. Twelve bottom-up touchpoints. Every one already evidenced somewhere in this engagement — nothing new invented for this page.
Governance → Operations9 touchpoints
4 working
4 partial
1
Operations → Governance12 touchpoints
3 partial
9 gap
Working — confirmed functioningPartial — exists, incomplete or unconfirmed at volumeGap — asked about directly, or evidenced absentNot evidenced either way
The finding, not just the picture
One spiral turns freely. The other barely turns at all. This isn't two systems failing in similar ways — it's one direction of flow that mostly works meeting a direction that mostly doesn't, at almost every one of the same touchpoints.
Look closely at the three "partial" scores on the bottom-up side (BU3, BU4, BU8) and they share one shape: a channel exists and works for the single most severe category of event — a death in care reaches the Disability Services Committee individually, every time. Nothing confirms it also carries routine volume or trend data. Below the most severe threshold, there is currently no confirmed path up at all.