A decision statement is a concise, single-sentence summary formulated before creating recommendation materials that explicitly defines three elements: what exact choice is being made (either a binary yes/no or a selection among named options), who is the single person who decides, and the specific date by which the decision must occur.

Decision Statement

A decision statement may designate a group or committee rather than a single individual as the decision-maker.

Analyze the draft against the three required elements of a decision statement. Identify two specific deficiencies in how those elements are represented.

A decision owner is the single individual who holds final sign-off authority for a proposed action. When authority is diffuse—where several individuals can say yes and anyone can say no—no single person owns the outcome, causing recommendation requests to degrade into open-ended meetings and discussions rather than actionable choices.

Decision Owner

When defining the timing element in a decision statement, the deadline must be identified as a specific ___ by which the decision must occur.

In a recommendation, a decision deadline is a non-arbitrary date by which sign-off must occur. It is established by calculating the operational lead time required for implementation and defining the specific negative consequences that occur if the date slips.

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