Decision Meeting Brief Template (DACI, RAPID)

Decision pre-read: decision question and deadline, DACI roles with RAPID mapping, options with costs, weighted scoring, recommendation, decision record

ReunionesBreveDACI (Atlassian Team Playbook); RAPID (Bain, HBR January 2006)decision meeting briefActualizada 29 oct 2026

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Cómo usar: Use it before any meeting that must reach a decision. Fill the decision question and the single Approver first, then the options. The main pitfall is a brief that hides the trade-off the recommendation accepts.

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Decision Meeting Brief: [Decision to be made]

A short pre-read sent before a meeting that must reach a decision: the question, who decides, the options with their costs and risks, the recommendation, and what the meeting must produce. Decision rights are written with the DACI roles (Driver, Approver, Contributors, Informed), with a mapping to Bain & Company's RAPID roles for teams that use them. Replace every [bracketed] value and every row marked Example. Worked examples use Marrowfield Foods, a fictional grocery distributor, choosing how to add picking capacity at one warehouse.

Brief details

Field	Value
Decision ID	[DEC-YYYY-NNN]
Meeting date	YYYY-MM-DD, [length]
Decision needed by	YYYY-MM-DD, and why that date
Status	[Pre-read / Decided / Deferred]
Driver (author)	[@driver]
Approver	[@approver]

1. The decision

Question: [Which option do we choose for ...?]

Example: Which option do we fund to raise picking capacity at the Eastgate warehouse by 25% before the peak season? If we do not decide this month, no option can be in place before peak.

2. Decision rights

DACI role	Person	What they do here	Closest RAPID role
Driver	[@driver]	Prepares this brief, runs the meeting, records the decision	Recommend
Approver	[@approver]	Makes the final decision	Decide
Contributors	[@name], [@name]	Give expert input before or in the meeting	Input, or Agree where they hold a formal sign-off
Informed	[@team]	Told the outcome after the decision	Perform, for those who carry it out

3. Context

[Two to five bullet points with the facts, constraints and evidence, each with a link.]

4. Options

	Option A	Option B	Option C
Description	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
One-off cost	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Running cost per year	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Main benefit	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]
Main risk	[ ]	[ ]	[ ]

Example (money in millions, one currency, five years, not discounted):

	A: Manual plus overtime	B: Semi-automated picking	C: Full automation
One-off cost	0.0	1.8	4.6
Running cost per year	2.4	1.7	1.2
Five-year cost	12.0	10.3	10.6
Main benefit	No project risk	Lowest five-year cost	Highest capacity
Main risk	Staff fatigue at peak	Integration with stock system	14-month lead time misses peak

Weighted scoring (scores 1 to 5, higher is better; weights agreed with the Approver before scoring):

Criterion	Weight	A	B	C
Five-year cost (Example)	40%	2	4	3
Delivery risk (Example)	30%	4	4	2
Capacity gain (Example)	30%	1	3	5
Weighted score	100%	2.3	3.7	3.3

5. Recommendation

[Recommended option, reason, trade-off accepted.]

Example: Recommend option B. It has the lowest five-year cost (10.3 million) and can be live before peak. It gives up the extra capacity of full automation, which we can revisit in two years.

6. What we need from the meeting

Approver decides between options [A, B, C], or names the information missing and a new date.
Contributors confirm [budget, staffing, technical feasibility].
Agree who tells the Informed group and by when.

7. Decision record

Field	Value
Decision	[Option chosen, or deferred to YYYY-MM-DD]
Decided by	[@approver], YYYY-MM-DD
Conditions	[Any conditions attached]
Dissent recorded	[Who disagreed and why, if anyone]
Next steps and owners	[Action, @owner, due date]
Review date	YYYY-MM-DD

Standard and licence note

Structure aligned with common decision-making practice. DACI roles as described in the Atlassian Team Playbook "DACI: a decision-making framework" (https://www.atlassian.com/team-playbook/plays/daci), named here and summarised in original words. RAPID is Bain & Company's decision-role framework, described in Paul Rogers and Marcia Blenko, "Who Has the D? How Clear Decision Roles Enhance Organizational Performance", Harvard Business Review, January 2006. Official text: Harvard Business Review, purchase or licensed access: https://hbr.org/2006/01/who-has-the-d-how-clear-decision-roles-enhance-organizational-performance. RAPID may be a trademark of Bain & Company; it is named for reference only. The text of this template is original. Template licence: MIT.

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