Key Takeaways:
- Key decisions took six weeks on average because too many people had to approve them
- Leadership mapped the twelve decisions that mattered most and named a single owner for each
- Simple rules took the place of long approval chains
- A short monthly review took the place of ad hoc escalations
- Average decision time halved, from six weeks to three
The company had doubled in size in two years, and its way of making decisions had not kept up. In the early days, a quick conversation between founders was enough. Now even small choices passed through several managers, and important ones could sit for weeks. Leadership felt the slowdown but could not point to a single cause.
The challenge
Nobody had decided who was allowed to decide. Product, engineering, sales and finance each assumed another team had the final word. As a result, proposals travelled from meeting to meeting, collecting opinions but not approvals.
The effects showed up every week:
- Pricing and roadmap questions stayed open for weeks at a time
- Managers escalated to the leadership team just to be safe
- Good ideas lost momentum before anyone acted
- Leaders spent most of their time in meetings about decisions rather than making them
“We had no shortage of smart people. We had a shortage of clear ownership.”
What we did
We began by tracing how a handful of recent decisions had actually been made, from first proposal to final answer. The pattern was the same each time: too many reviewers, no clear owner and no deadline.
The work then ran in three steps.
- Map. We listed the twelve decisions that shaped the business most and recorded who was involved in each one.
- Assign. In a leadership workshop, we agreed one owner for every decision, plus who must be consulted and who only needs to be informed.
- Simplify. We replaced the approval chains with simple rules, such as spending limits and clear deadlines for answers.
One owner per decision
The workshop was direct. For each decision we asked one question: who makes the final call? Where two leaders both said “me”, we talked it through until the answer was clear. Where nobody said it, we chose together. The result fitted on a single page every manager could read in a few minutes.
Rules, not approvals
Many approvals existed only because nobody had defined what was safe to decide alone. We set simple limits, so managers could act within them and escalate only above them. We also introduced one short monthly review, where leadership checked progress and revisited any decision that had stalled.
The results
Within a quarter, decisions began moving at the speed the company needed.
- Average decision time halved, from six weeks to three
- Managers handled most routine choices without escalating
- Leadership meetings became shorter and sharper
- The product roadmap was confirmed a full month earlier than the previous year
What made the difference
Three things mattered most. Every important decision had one clear owner. Rules gave managers permission to act without asking. And the monthly review caught problems early instead of letting them linger.
“Speed came from knowing who decides, not from working harder.”
If decisions in your company take longer than they should, the first step is a short conversation about where they stall.
