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PlayP11 Operating model · Portfolio and operating decisions · Editorial rank 11 of 12

Run an accountable investment and decision review

Repeated recommendations do not become actions, or teams optimise incompatible objectives while money and capacity remain fixed.

Decision
Which feasible tranche or intervention should be funded, held, changed or stopped?
Primary commercial metric
Portfolio contribution change net of coordination and transition cost, qualified when causal separation is infeasible.
Readiness
Actual authority required
Agent role
None for portfolio authority; optional evidence preparation only after P10 validation.
01

Fit

When to use this Play

There are material recurring choices and leaders can change at least one relevant budget, resource or execution decision.

When not to use it

A new meeting duplicates existing authority, opportunities have incomparable unsupported values, or no owner can move resources.

Why it should work

A named decision forum with common economics and real rights can resolve trade-offs and remove repeated handoff delays.

Basic version

One weekly or monthly decision inside an existing meeting, with one final accountable owner.
02

Prepare

Required maturity
Basic for decision rights; Connected for cross-team tranches. Ready with an actual decision, owner and capacity. Not ready for mathematical optimisation without comparable evidence.
P01 Establish decision-specific customer economics — Only when the selected intervention depends on unresolved customer-cohort economics. For workflow cost or other non-customer economics, use the relevant T2 view; P01 is not a prerequisite.Check readiness for P11 (D02)

Inputs

Decision inventory, eligible opportunity cards, economic ranges, commitments, budget rights, staff availability, prior actions and outcome readouts.

Audience or customer

Outcome owners and budget/delivery partners; customers affected by the selected intervention remain governed by its Play.

Human role

Commercial budget owner decides; Finance approves required transfers; Product/Service and function owners commit actual capacity; method owner challenges effect comparability.

Systems required

Existing planning, Finance and work-tracking tools with T1–T4 linked to the decision.

Guardrails

Strategic floors, brand/future demand, cash, contracts, test integrity, craft quality and customer-contact/capacity conflicts.

How to configure a Play

Copy the Play you need and complete only the relevant parts of T1–T5. Name the people responsible, define the customer group, agree economic and customer limits, and set a review date before starting. An empty decision threshold is not permission to act. Basic, Connected and Advanced describe how the work is configured; Experimental describes its evidence. AI is optional: compare each AI step with a simpler way of doing the same work.

03

Do the work

Intervention

Replace one reporting forum with a short decision review and explicit authority/closure record.

Workflow

  1. Select the recurring decision.

  2. Agree metric and rights.

  3. Show constraints and alternatives.

  4. Challenge evidence.

  5. Record the owner’s choice.

  6. Execute a real action.

  7. Track closure and mature outcome.

  8. Review whether the forum earns its cost.

AI role

Optional assist Optional briefing from approved records and scenario explanation; no independent allocation or invented comparable returns.

Automation role

Certified report refresh, action reminders, budget checks and versioned decision records.

Agent role

None for portfolio authority; optional evidence preparation only after P10 validation.

Failure modes

  • Owner without authority
  • central ticket queue
  • noise-driven reallocation
  • strategic investment judged on immediate clicks.
04

Measure and decide

Measurement

Track actual decisions and resource changes, total review cost, execution latency and subsequent intervention outcomes without summing overlapping benefits.

Primary commercial metric

Portfolio contribution change net of coordination and transition cost, qualified when causal separation is infeasible.

Leading indicators

Action closure, authorised transfers, queue age, decision recurrence and retired reporting hours.

Experiment

Pilot the rights/forum change on one decision; compare prior or parallel workflow carefully. Do not claim a clean causal organisation effect from a simple before/after.

Guardrails

Strategic floors, brand/future demand, cash, contracts, test integrity, craft quality and customer-contact/capacity conflicts.
Scale when
Broaden only when repeated decisions improve, authority works and net coordination benefit exceeds added overhead.
Stop / reassess when
Stop the extra forum if it adds reporting without executable decisions; keep necessary financial and customer controls.
05

Learn and progress

Learning

Decision, alternatives, dissent, budget/capacity reality, outcome, assumption changes and the next review date.

Practical tool

Next action
execute one small authorised decision and record the blockers encountered.
Open T1 Intervention and investment card
06

Optional depth

Advanced versionPrerequisites: see Required maturity above.

Cross-functional scenario services and persistent outcome teams only after recurring workload and comparative economics justify them.

Evidence for this Play2claims reviewed, with confidence ratings, limits and sources.

Claim classifications

Accepted means a principle or mechanism survived critical review, not that it guarantees a return. Accepted with conditions means prerequisites apply. Qualified means the original claim has been narrowed. Advanced needs substantial readiness. Experimental needs a capped comparison. Unresolved means the evidence cannot settle the claim. Rejected means the recommendation is excluded.

High, Medium and Low describe confidence in the stated target, not the chance of a positive ROI. For a Qualified or Rejected historical claim, confidence applies to the decision to narrow or reject it and to the supported limit—not to the original headline. Read the headline and classification together. An accounting identity or design principle is not empirical evidence of a commercial outcome. Follow the linked chapters, Plays and tools to see where each claim applies.