Five Decisions Worksheet
Define Problem, Product, People, Production, and Proof for one workflow.
Use this guide to structure a discussion, then record your answers in the editable template or printable PDF. Use synthetic or authorized information. A named person owns each decision.
Make the five decisions
An editable companion to the SIOP worksheet. Use one workflow and keep the first result small.
- 1. Problem
- What happens now, where does it break, who feels the cost, and what should improve?
- 2. Product
- What must be produced, what is the smallest useful result, and what is excluded?
- 3. People
- Who uses, contributes expertise, approves, builds, and owns it?
- 4. Production
- What sources and access are required? How do reliability, errors, support, and maintenance work?
- 5. Proof
- What evidence would make you continue, change, expand, or stop?
- Next useful step
- Name one action, owner, review date, and delivery route.
See a completed companion example
- 1. Problem
- Analysts search inconsistent leave-policy documents and rework routine answers.
- 2. Product
- A cited draft or escalation. Exclude eligibility decisions and automatic sending.
- 3. People
- Analyst uses; specialist reviews; platform partner builds; service-desk lead owns.
- 4. Production
- Approved synthetic corpus first; current policy versions; exception handling and manual fallback.
- 5. Proof
- Compare total handling effort and quality; stop for unauthorized actions or missed eligibility escalation.
- Next useful step
- Borrow specialist support for a synthetic test; lead reviews in two weeks.
Record the next decision.
What will you do next, who owns it, and when will you review the evidence? Keep unresolved assumptions visible.