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Anil Thapa
What would this work change?

A review from the exercise

Nobody has been named to make the call

The starting point when question two is answered "several people are involved, and the final call is not assigned" or "I don't know yet".

Six questions about one decision from the reader's own work: what it would change, who makes the call, when evidence could still reach it, what evidence it rests on, what the next step displaces, and what is missing to take it. The first question answered with an open condition is where the result starts, and this review is one of the seven starting points.

Question 02 · The owner

Who makes that choice, and where do you sit?

  1. In placeI make it, within a boundary that has been agreed.
  2. In placeI recommend to a named owner who makes it.
  3. Starts hereSeveral people are involved, and the final call is not assigned.
  4. Starts hereI don't know yet.

Where a part below depends on the answer, each passage opens with its answer in bold. Find yours.

What the answer establishes

Several people are involved, and the final call is not assigned. Several people are involved and none of them has been named to make the final call. Evidence prepared now has nowhere to land: a recommendation to a group is a recommendation to nobody in particular, and the easiest answer to it is not now.

I don't know yet. Who can make this choice is not yet known. Until it is, you cannot tell whether you are preparing evidence for an owner or waiting to be given a decision, and the two need different work.

The question to ask next

Several people are involved, and the final call is not assigned. Ask the most senior person involved: who makes the final call on this, and would they take a recommendation with an alternative in it? The answer may be a name, or it may be that the group is the owner and needs a date to decide by. Either is usable. "We will see" is not.

I don't know yet. Ask the person who asked for the work who they will take the result to. Follow that chain until it reaches someone who can say yes or no. If it never does, that is the finding, and it is worth more than the analysis.

The small step

Hold the work at its current size, and draft the shape of the recommendation anyway: the choice, an alternative you would accept, and the fact that would change your mind. Then ask who should receive it. A draft addressed to someone is harder to leave unassigned than a request for an owner.

What it costs

The work waits while the owner is found, and whoever asked for it carries that delay. Asking who decides can also show that the group would rather not say, which is information and is not always welcome. The alternative, preparing more evidence in the meantime, costs more and lands in the same place.

What changes the advice

If the owner turns out to be you, inside a boundary nobody has stated, the open question is the boundary: what you may decide alone and what needs a second signature. Agree it before acting on it. If the owner is named and the decision has a date, the next question is the evidence, question four.

Answer the six questions

Read next

Essay

Recommendations that go nowhere

Name the decision and its owner, or accept that you have a finding. The rewrite in the essay is what makes a recommendation land with someone in particular.

Essay

The review queue has one person's name on it

A reviewer can judge an analysis. Whether the organization should act on it belongs to whoever is authorized to decide, and the two approvals are not the same.

The other exercise here runs the same way on a fictional quarter: four demands, capacity for two, and what each pair cost. Tradeoffs