Decision Evaluations
Before you approve it, see what it does to the numbers you already have.
The proposal arrives with its own numbers
A hire, a purchase or a price change is argued by the person proposing it. Checking it against what you already know usually happens after the approval, if at all.
It arrives as a slide
With its own numbers, its own assumptions and a deadline.
Nobody checks it against the budget
The line it lands on, and the cash it uses, are looked up later.
The gaps are not written down
What nobody could verify gets approved along with the rest.
Afterwards, no one recalls why
The decision was made. The reasoning was in the room.
A decision memo, built from your own numbers
Eleven sections, each tied to your budgets and statements, with its sources and its blind spots stated.
Report
- 01The ask
- 02Executive summary
- 03Proposals at a glance
- 04Decision drivers
- 05Financial impact
- 06Risk register
- 07Sensitivity
- 08Open questions
- 09Suggested next steps
- 10Sources and grounding
- 11What we could not evaluate
Bring the support desk in-house
02 Executive summary
In-house costs more in the first year and less from the second, if volume holds. The case rests on one input we could not confirm: expected ticket volume.
03 Proposals at a glance
Two or three proposals sit side by side in this table.
From the question to the record of the decision
What it checks, what it could not, and what you decided.
Pick the kind of decision, then state the ask
A guided wizard asks what you are deciding. For a proposal: build vs buy, capex, hire vs outsource, pricing or discount, refinance or lease, vendor selection, or other. For an event or a change: a budget review, an external event, a regulatory impact, or other. Each type asks for the inputs that matter to it, and you can compare two or three proposals side by side.
Proposal decisions
Impact evaluations
Every claim names the figure it came from
The evaluation reads your budgets, financial statements and headcount plan, and cites the line behind each statement. The citations are checked afterwards, so a claim that has nothing behind it does not pass.
Each claim points at the budget line or statement it came from. A citation that does not hold is caught.
See what would change the answer
Two to four written statements of the form "if this, then that", each one with the source behind it. A risk register sits beside them, so the question "what if this is wrong" has a written answer before the approval.
07 Sensitivity
It tells you what it could not check
Every report has a section for what it could not check: the input nobody supplied, a matter outside what the data covers, a call that needs a person. Each gap is described with its reason, never filled with a guess.
11 What we could not evaluate
The case is laid out. The decision stays with you.
The report sets out the drivers, the figures and the gaps. It does not tell you what to choose. When you decide, you record the outcome and a note, so the reasoning is still there next year. The report downloads as PDF or Word.
Decision outcome, recorded by Mia L.
The decision is yours, and so is the record of it.
The same treatment for an event or a change
When something happens to the business rather than being proposed, evaluate its effect: exposure, sensitivity, risks and gaps, with charts. Turn the recommended actions into tasks from the report.
Check it before you approve it.
Bring the proposal. Get the case, the sensitivities, and a plain list of what is still unknown.