The DARING Decision Tree: Defining Authority and Voice

Those of you who work with teams and other people might find that at times it is a frustrating experience. If there is not clarification of who makes decisions, then there can be conflicts because multiple parties think they can speak into processes or make the decisions.

In a previous post, I showed how there are varying levels of authority when it comes to decision-making. Since then I’ve refined the concept a bit more in a way that there is more clarity for parties involved in a project or initiative.

Many tools!

There are many decision-making/authority level tools out there. You may have heard of RACI, also known as ARCI, for example. (I just read about another variant today, DACI.)

Recently I learned of a tool called RAPID®. This has been one of the clearest tools I have seen. However it is confusing because the letters are all out of order and it is missing an important party — the people who need to be informed of the decision.

The DARING model

So, may I present to you an alternative: DARING. It takes elements of all these tools and puts them in a logical and structured order that resemble a tree.

At the top of the tree is the decision maker. Decision makers fall into two categories. 

One is defining the person who performs the action of making the decision: Decide.

This is a single person who makes the final decision. The buck stops here. This is the person who has veto power in case everyone else wants to do something else.

The other situation is that a group of people makes the decision, or they Agree.

They agree together what that decision is. It is a communal discernment. No one person makes the decision, but a certain group makes the decision.

These two actions are at the top of the tree, and either an individual or a group make the decisions.

Next we go down to the trunk. The next party is the one that can Recommend an action or decision.

The Recommend party is an important group and represents the key stakeholders in the decision. This is a group that must be consulted. It would not be wise to make a decision without their advisement.

Below this group is the Input group.

This group gives feedback or thoughts, but they do not need to be consulted unless the decision makers want to.

Now we come to the roots of the tree. Below the trunk, these are parties that are not part of the decision-making process, but they are still important. Decisions usually require actions, and there are people needed to be information of the decision and to carry out the actions.

The first is the Notify group.

This is the group of people that the decision makers must notify of the final decision. They need to communicate the results. In fact, at the end of the decision, everyone under the leaves (the groups in the trunk and the roots) should actually be notified. But sometimes there are people who are not involved in executing the action or part of the influence process that also need to be notified.

The other party is the Go group.

These people go execute on the action. They do the follow-up and moving towards the ultimate outcome.

The parties in the upper leafy part of the tree are the key decision makers. The trunk include the influencers. And the roots are the follow-up phase after the decision is made.

All of these steps make up the acronym DARING. DARING decisions are one that have a clear influence, decision-making, and follow-up process. Here’s the full diagram in color.

The DARING Decision Tree

I hope you find this tool to bring clarity to all that your team does!

Addendum: I’ve updated the graphic here in case you would like to use this cleaner version.