# Enable Decisions and Escalation

Status: draft · v0.1.0 · Manager System
draft reference — not a fitted standard

Move consequential operating questions to timely, evidence-based decisions through explicit authority, participation, escalation, fallback, communication, and review.

## Purpose
Prevent ambiguity, repeated discussion, authority bottlenecks, silent workarounds, and late surprises from becoming the company’s decision system.

## Steps
1. Frame the decision question — Turn a concern or stalled conversation into a bounded decision.
2. Resolve authority and participation — Place the decision with the lowest capable authorized owner and the right contributors.
3. Assemble sufficient decision evidence — Reduce consequential uncertainty without turning analysis into indefinite delay.
4. Form options and consequences — Make real alternatives and their system effects comparable.
5. Decide and record — Convert evidence and authority into an explicit state.
6. Communicate and hand off implementation — Make the decision real across affected work and connected processes.
7. Review outcome and improve decision flow — Test the decision and the mechanism rather than merely closing the record.

## Connections
- upstream: Run the Team Operating Cadence (/processes/run-team-operating-cadence) — trigger: A material decision requires focused work or authority beyond ordinary cadence.
- upstream: Manage Team Capacity and Priorities (/processes/manage-team-capacity-and-priorities) — trigger: A required tradeoff exceeds authority or crosses an escalation threshold.
- upstream: Establish the Manager Operating Role (/processes/establish-manager-operating-role) — trigger: The decision is framed and authority is resolved.
- downstream: Run the Team Operating Cadence (/processes/run-team-operating-cadence) — trigger: The decision affects team work or cadence.
- downstream: Review Manager-System Health (/processes/review-manager-system-health) — trigger: The manager-system review point or material pattern occurs.

## Measures
- Decision operating effect: Structured comparison of intended outcome, implementation, assumptions, side effects, context, and guardrails; not outcome alone as proof of decision quality.
- Decision control completeness: Material decisions satisfying required fields divided by all completed material decisions.
- Decision response and flow time: Elapsed time from accepted brief to authorized state, separated by authority, evidence, participation, and owner waits.
- Controlled decision-method use: Applicable material decisions linked to the active method divided by all applicable material decisions.
- Decision-system exception pattern: Exceptions by decision type, level, interface, severity, cause, age, and disposition.
- Voice, expertise, safety, quality, ethics, privacy, and retaliation guardrail: Context-specific qualified review of participation, dissent, escalation, overrides, access, outcomes, and participant feedback; not a causal or legal conclusion.