Some of us live in a PowerPoint world. Decisions are made based on the presenter's ability. If the slides are vague enough and minutes untaken, decisions can be re-interpreted. I've spoken to a lot of commercial and non-commercial people to conclude this is a fairly common occurrence. Pondering this, I happened upon the Amazon model of a paper that is written to stand on its own merits to invest billions of dollars. The idea is that it can take a long time to properly write and coordinate the paper with the affected stakeholders.
This is similar to how the US Supreme Court operates. They decide which controversies they want to address. Then, they receive opinion papers from various parties. Justices hear oral arguments. They have a two-round discussion where every member of the Court expresses their opinion then can clarify in the second pass. Then, majority and minority opinions are documented and published. The model of a decision paper has precedent going back centuries.
Writing a paper in isolation is fairly easy. Coordinating this paper with affected stakeholders is not. As with most factfinding, a little digging will expose a myriad of competing initiatives that are all struggling for attention. These are the alternatives that are discussed. This should lead to a healthy dialog on which alternative is ideal, and how best to go about. Therefore, while you may start the paper, it becomes a group effort and a group recommendation.
This is similar to how the US Supreme Court operates. They decide which controversies they want to address. Then, they receive opinion papers from various parties. Justices hear oral arguments. They have a two-round discussion where every member of the Court expresses their opinion then can clarify in the second pass. Then, majority and minority opinions are documented and published. The model of a decision paper has precedent going back centuries.
Writing a paper in isolation is fairly easy. Coordinating this paper with affected stakeholders is not. As with most factfinding, a little digging will expose a myriad of competing initiatives that are all struggling for attention. These are the alternatives that are discussed. This should lead to a healthy dialog on which alternative is ideal, and how best to go about. Therefore, while you may start the paper, it becomes a group effort and a group recommendation.
Structure
What would go into such a paper? My research led to the following outline assuming a 6-page paper
- Summary. Half-page paragraph which provides
- background summary
- key issues (topic sentences from the latter section)
- exact problem the decision will resolve
- a brief touch on the evaluation, and
- the investment summary and the best alternative.
- Decision/Recommendation. A short enumerated list of the decision or recommendations, perhaps written as a user story.
- Compliance assessment. Similar to legal precedent, this section validates the decision complies with the organization's direction, prior decisions and other areas of interest.
- Vison. Whether/how the decision aligns to the organizational Vision
- Strategy. Whether/how the decision aligns to the organizational Strategic Plan
- Previous Decisions. Whether/how the decision aligns to any relevant prior decisions.
- Existing Policy. Whether/how the decision aligns to organizational policy.
- Legal. Comment about whether legal issues or implications flow from this decision.
- Resourcing. Comment about whether the decision can be implemented within existing organizational resources (budget/staff), or requires additional resourcing.
- Background. Outline the key information necessary to understand the decision being presented.
- Key Issues. Identify the issues that the decision seeks to address. This is a scope statement. Touch on issues that are relevant to or affected by this decision
- Evaluation. As related to the proposed decision, discuss the benefits, costs and risks of the proposed decision. A few questions to address in the evaluation include:
- Value proposition
- Beneficiaries
- Opportunity (market size)
- Competitive landscape (Alternatives detailed in the next section)
- Differentiation (why are we best suited to pursue this)
- Why now (market window)
- Roadmap or Go-to-market strategy (How will we get this product to market)
- KPIs, metrics, return on investment (How will we measure success)
- Solution requirements (What factors are critical to success)
- Alternatives. Provide a brief assessment of any viable alternatives.
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Ben
In tenebris solus sto