# The Decision Rights Map — Facilitator Guide

> Folder: `the-decision-rights-map` · Category: leadership · 4–10 people · 25 min · offline + online · print props · tool pack
> License: CC BY 4.0

A 25-minute, 4–10 person leadership tool. Most team friction isn't disagreement about the answer — it's two people who each thought the decision was theirs, or one person waiting for permission nobody knew they needed. This lays out the decisions a team actually makes and names, for each, exactly one decider, who must be consulted first, and who just needs to be told after. Then it finds the decisions where the pen is in the wrong hand and reassigns one.

## Objectives

By the end of the activity, participants will have:

1. Named **exactly one decider** for the team's recurring decisions — and felt the discomfort that forces, which is where the real problems surface.
2. Separated *consulted before* from *informed after*, killing the permission nobody knew they had to ask for and the veto nobody actually held.
3. Reassigned one decision that was sitting in the wrong hand, out loud, with what changes now written down.

## When to use this activity

- Two people each believed the same call was theirs, and it blew up — or will.
- A new manager is inheriting a set of invisible decisions in their first weeks.
- You have 4–10 people who share recurring decisions and 25 minutes; online, the three columns live on a shared board.

## Decides · Consulted · Informed

| Column | The question it answers | The failure it prevents |
|---|---|---|
| **Decides** | Who will live with the consequence of this call — one name, only one | the decision made by whoever is loudest, or by consensus-by-drift |
| **Consulted** | Whose input the decider must hear *before* moving | the late ambush: "why wasn't I asked?" |
| **Informed** | Who just needs to be told *after* | the rumor mill filling the gap a non-decision left |

Forcing exactly one name onto *Decides* is uncomfortable and useful — the moment you can't write one, you've found the real problem.

## Setup

- 4–10 people who share a set of recurring decisions — what we build, what we spend, who we hire, how we schedule, what we ship.
- A wall or shared board with three columns per decision: **Decides · Consulted · Informed**.
- The card faces from `the-decision-rights-map-prop-cards.pdf`: a "who decides (one name)" card, a "consulted before" card, an "informed after" card, "the unclear one" card, a "reassign + owner" card, and a blank (see **The card** below).
- Put `the-decision-rights-map-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) on the wall so the two rules stay in view.
- Print one `the-decision-rights-map-worksheet.pdf` per group — the one-page artifact sheet the room fills while it talks.
- Put one `the-decision-rights-map-workbook.pdf` at each seat if people want their own copy; the sheet above is the group version.
- Optional: open `the-decision-rights-map-slide-deck.html` in any browser to run the 12-slide deck on the wall (S opens the presenter drawer, T starts the round timer); `the-decision-rights-map-slide-deck.pdf` is the same deck for print.
- Online: one shared doc or whiteboard, three columns; the cards become a legend pinned at the top.

## How to run it

| Time | Phase | Facilitator does | Participants do |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0–5 | List | Push for the recurring decisions — the ones that come up again and again, not one-offs | Name the decisions this team actually makes |
| 5–13 | Assign | Hold the pen to one name per row; flag every "we" as a finding, not an answer | Write exactly one name under **Decides**, list who's **Consulted** before and who's only **Informed** after |
| 13–19 | Spot | Ask the room to circle, silently, then compare | Circle the decisions whose decider was contested, blank, held by someone not in the room, or written as a group |
| 19–25 | Reassign | Make the reassignment specific: who, what changes, what they still must consult | Pick one unclear decision, name its single owner out loud, say what changes now that it has one |

Then run the debrief — see `the-decision-rights-map-debrief.md`.

## The card

The sheet from `the-decision-rights-map-prop-cards.pdf` (poker spec, 63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides, branded back, blanks) carries six faces: **who decides (one name)** — the pen; **consulted before** — input, not veto; **informed after** — told, not asked; **the unclear one** — the flag you circle; **reassign + owner** — the decision this session actually moves; **blank** — for your own rows. Stand the *unclear one* card beside every row that stalls; it is the finding the map exists to produce.

## Failure modes

1. **The map quietly becomes the org chart.** People write job titles, not the hand that actually decides. Rescue: ask "who signed the last time this got decided?" — the name that surfaces is the row's true owner, chart or not.
2. **"We decide" gets accepted as an answer.** It never is. Rescue: a row with no single name gets circled, not discussed — the circling *is* the outcome.
3. **Consulted balloons into veto.** If everyone must be consulted on everything, the drift you just mapped returns through a polite door. Rescue: for each consulted name ask "does the decider have to *incorporate* you, or *hear* you?" Mark the difference honestly.
4. **The session ends with a map and no reassignment.** A fully drawn map with nothing moved is documentation, not a tool. Rescue: guard the 19–25 block; if time dies elsewhere, cut rows from Assign before you cut Reassign.

## Variations

- **New manager, first week:** map the team's decisions before inheriting the invisible ones; catch the "who actually calls this?" gaps early.
- **After a collision:** take the one decision that caused a clash and run only that row — the map usually shows two people who each believed they owned it.
- **Quarterly:** re-run it; ownership quietly drifts back to whoever is loudest unless you redraw it.

## Facilitation notes

- The right to the pen follows the consequence, not the volume. When two people reach for a row, ask who will live with the outcome — the answer usually ends the argument without you refereeing it.
- Treat every stall as data. The moment nobody can write a name is the most valuable ninety seconds of the session; put the *unclear one* card there and move on rather than solving it live.
- Anchor the abstraction with one real recent decision before starting the list — a team that maps "pricing" in the abstract maps differently after it maps last Tuesday's discount.
- The reassignment must say what changes. "Ana decides, consults Dev before, tells everyone after" is a sentence the room can act on; "it's clearer now" is not.

## Put it on the wall

Print `the-decision-rights-map-activity-poster.pdf` (A3) to put the run of show, the three columns and the two rules on one wall while you facilitate.

## Props in this folder

- `the-decision-rights-map-prop-cards.pdf` — poker-spec print sheet (63.5 × 88.9 mm, bleed and cut guides): the six card faces, branded back, blanks
- `the-decision-rights-map-guide.md` — this run sheet
- `the-decision-rights-map-debrief.md` — twelve numbered debrief questions with what each targets, plus failure modes of the debrief
- `the-decision-rights-map-worksheet.pdf` — the one-page session sheet, print-and-fill: the decision rows, each with its one decider, consulted circle and informed list
- `the-decision-rights-map-workbook.pdf` — participant workbook: the idea in plain words, your own rows as fill-in pages, notes and a before-you-leave page
- `the-decision-rights-map-slide-deck.html` / `.pdf` — the 12-slide deck for teaching or projecting: presenter drawer (S), round timer (T), built-in QR, print fallback; the `.pdf` is the same deck for print
- `the-decision-rights-map-run-sheet.pdf` — the print edition: this run sheet + the debrief, bound as one A4 document with bookmarks
- `the-decision-rights-map-activity-poster.pdf` — the whole activity on one A3 wall sheet: run of show, the three columns, watch-outs
- `the-decision-rights-map-tool.json` — machine-facing file (not listed in the download table): the artifact as a machine-readable template: columns, flow, fields, prompts, watch-outs
- `the-decision-rights-map-start-here.md` — one page, thirty seconds, then print and go
- `the-decision-rights-map-license.md` — what you may do with all of this: run it, copy it, translate it, rebrand it; keep the attribution line
- `SKILL.md` — machine-readable manifest for AI agents
- `*-Letter.pdf` — US Letter editions of the print documents

## Agent version

Every file in this folder has a stable public URL — an AI agent can fetch the props, the debrief and this run sheet with three curl commands (see `SKILL.md`). The paper version itself needs no screen at all: no projector, no accounts, just a wall, a pen and one name per row.