ILLUSTRATIVE SAMPLE
A real Decision Breakdown, sample
This is a real Decision Breakdown, shared with permission. One loop, the weekly KPIs, with two related examples next to it for context. It stops exactly where every Breakdown stops — at a test to run, not a verdict.
Shown as an illustrative example — not a real, identifiable client case.
Three things you mentioned. Each one has an owner and a point where it slips, and all three end up in the same place.
You
finishing it, squaring it away, catching it later
Tap a loop to open it. The KPI one is the full breakdown.
Weekly KPIs
Reported
Your leaders get the inputs and the actions. The deadline passes, and then one thing happens: you finish the report and hand out the actions yourself.
Interpretation
So the loop has an owner and a deadline, but the deadline doesn't actually do anything. When it passes, the only thing that changes is whose desk it lands on.
It's also two handoffs, not one. Getting the numbers in is one job. Deciding what to do about them and getting it done is another, and the two can break for different reasons.
Owner
Your leaders
Why your leaders are being reasonable
Put yourself in the shoes of a new supervisor in a building that doubled in a year. There's a pile of things due this week, and most of them hurt if they slip. A truck misses, a customer calls, a hospital waits.
The KPI input is the one thing on that list that still gets done if it slips, and done properly, by the most senior person in the building. Anyone getting through a rough week puts that one last. Honestly, I would too.
You said you don't have the bandwidth to teach, so you absorb it. Fair enough. But absorbing it teaches them something as well: the deadline is soft.
Authority / boundary
How the loop holds up
Is it clear what they're deciding?
half
Entering the numbers, yes. What to do about them, probably not.
Who owns it?
named
The inputs, yes. With the actions, I'm not sure whether they own them or just report on them.
Can they make it stick?
don't know
With their own numbers, sure. An action that lands in a peer's area might need you behind it.
Where does their call end?
loose
In your words, delegated without clear guidelines.
What happens when it's missed?
nothing
It just lands on you.
Test
One thing to try next cycle
Try this for the next cycle, or two or three if you can stand it.
- Don't fill anything in. A missing input stays blank in the review. No speech, just a blank.
- Every blank gets one question: what got in the way? Write down the short answer.
- Every action leaves the meeting with a name and a date, assigned by the leader, not by you. If a leader needs a peer to do something and it doesn't happen, don't fix it. Just note it.
- Keep reading the numbers yourself. If something is actually on fire, handle that one thing and write down that you did. You still see everything. You just stop doing their part.
This should take less of your time than the current setup, not more.
One last thing: this is one loop, seen only from one side. The people involved might describe it differently, and the test is the cheapest way to find out.