The cost of waiting
An opportunity can sit between departments long after the underlying facts are known. A supplier change needs procurement approval, a product change waits for a finance estimate, and a customer exception moves through several managers. By the time the decision is recorded, the conditions that prompted it may have changed.
Decision speed measures the elapsed time from recognising a question to reaching and executing a defensible choice. It should not be confused with urgency for its own sake. A safety decision or a major investment needs appropriate challenge. The issue is avoidable waiting: unclear ownership, repeated requests for the same information and approvals that add little scrutiny.
The COSO enterprise risk management framework connects risk with strategy and performance. That relationship provides a useful lens: decisions should be made at a speed appropriate to their consequence and reversibility, with escalation where the exposure demands it.
Find the time spent between stages
Many companies measure the time it takes to perform a task but overlook the queue before it begins. A contract review may require two hours of legal work after a week in an inbox. An investment case may be revised four times because there is no shared definition of the required evidence. Measuring only the work itself misses the delay experienced by the business.
A practical decision log records the date a question arose, the named owner, information requested, the decision date and the time execution began. The aim is to locate patterns, not to rank individuals. APQC’s benchmarking guidance describes process measures including cycle time, quality, cost and risk. An organisation should choose the combination that reflects its own outcome, not optimise one measure in isolation.
Segmentation matters. Routine, reversible choices can follow agreed rules; complex, irreversible commitments may need broader review. Combining the two in one average makes it hard to see whether governance is well matched to the risk.
Make authority explicit
Decision rights are often ambiguous where functions overlap. Sales owns the customer relationship, operations owns delivery, finance owns margin and risk teams own a specific control. If nobody knows who can make the final trade-off, each function can veto informally without accepting accountability for the overall result.
A clear decision design identifies one accountable owner, the evidence that must be considered, the colleagues who advise and the triggers for escalation. It also records the reasoning and any conditions attached to the choice. A short record is particularly valuable for decisions that will later be revisited: teams can distinguish a poor original assumption from a change in circumstances.
This clarity should not remove specialist challenge. Quality standards such as ISO 9001 encourage process control and continual improvement. In practice, a fast decision that repeatedly creates defects is not faster for the organisation as a whole.
Better information reduces repeated debate
Managers often receive figures that use different dates, definitions or levels of detail. A sales forecast, an operations capacity plan and a finance margin estimate may all be individually reasonable but impossible to compare. The result is an extended argument over which number is authoritative rather than a decision about what to do.
A decision brief can state the objective, options, assumptions, constraints, likely consequences and point at which the choice will be reviewed. It need not be long. The revised IFRS management commentary guidance focuses on coherent information about the factors that affect value creation and cash flows. Although it addresses external reporting, the value of consistent definitions is equally apparent inside a company.
Data dashboards can shorten preparation, but they do not decide whether the evidence is adequate. A useful system flags uncertainty and ownership. Presenting an estimate as a precise fact can accelerate an error.
When speed should slow down
Some decisions deserve deliberate pauses: entering a new market, changing a safety control, approving a large acquisition or committing to a long-term vendor. The appropriate test is whether each stage changes the quality of the decision. Duplicate presentations and approvals based solely on hierarchy deserve scrutiny; independent challenge and legal review may be essential.
Businesses can review decision speed alongside implementation quality, reversals and exceptions. If the clock improves but rework rises, the process has shifted cost downstream. If both speed and outcomes improve, clear ownership and better evidence may have removed genuine friction.
Decision speed is useful because it turns a vague complaint about bureaucracy into observable work. It shows which choices can be delegated, where information repeatedly fails and where governance protects the business. The goal is timely judgment with a record that people can act on.
A decision inventory
The first improvement is often to classify decisions that recur. Pricing exceptions, supplier substitutions, hiring requests and product changes differ in value and risk, but each may follow an inconsistent path depending on who happens to receive the request. An inventory can identify the recurring choices, current owners, approval stages and typical delay.
The organisation can then define standard authority for routine cases and escalation conditions for material exceptions. A manager might approve a small discount within an agreed margin, while a larger or strategically sensitive concession needs finance input. Delegation works best when the rules describe the boundaries and the reporting expected afterward.
This reduces repeated argument about procedure. It also allows senior leaders to concentrate on choices that genuinely need their judgment, rather than serving as a queue for routine approvals.
The importance of execution
A decision is only useful when the organisation can put it into effect. An approved supplier change may wait for system access, contract setup or staff training. Measuring only the date of approval would disguise the customer’s actual wait. Decision speed should therefore include the handoff to implementation and a check that the intended result occurred.
An owner can record a brief decision statement, effective date, required actions and conditions for review. This helps teams avoid reopening settled points each time a new participant joins. It also creates a basis for learning when the choice proves wrong.
A reversal is not necessarily a failure. New evidence can justify a change of course. The warning sign is a pattern of reversals caused by missing information that was available at the outset or by an approval process that excluded the people responsible for delivery.
Use technology carefully
Workflow software can show where a request sits and automate routine routing. It can also entrench an unnecessary chain of approvals. Before automating, companies should ask whether each reviewer has a distinct role and whether information can be collected once instead of repeatedly.
Decision support tools can surface relevant precedents, financial effects and risk thresholds. Their output still needs accountable interpretation. An estimated margin or risk score may depend on stale assumptions, and a confident recommendation can obscure uncertainty.
The most informative dashboard combines elapsed time with outcome measures: rework, customer delay, exceptions and adherence to risk limits. A faster queue that creates more mistakes has not improved the business process. COSO’s practical enterprise risk guidance likewise frames risk management as part of real decisions and execution, rather than a separate reporting exercise.
References
COSO enterprise risk management framework