Decision Room: Protect the Choice Under Time Pressure
Earn executive attention, compare four options symmetrically, preserve material uncertainty and end with a specific leadership action.
30 minutes
Scenario
NordForge Industrial Group manufactures industrial equipment at three sites. Over six months, OTIF fell from 94% to 87%, delays affected the three largest customers, urgent cross-functional escalations rose by 42%, and average response to a material deviation reached 2.4 days. A review of 120 delayed orders found that the largest time loss occurs at two cross-functional handoffs in 68% of cases. No single end-to-end owner exists. You must recommend a justified level of intervention without hiding uncertainty.
- Your role
- Transformation lead preparing a three-minute recommendation for the CEO, CFO and COO
- Method
- Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model
Evidence pack
Option A — Local Quick Fix
Local visual boards and daily meetings; EUR 0.4m; three months; expected OTIF effect +1–2 points; low disruption; high reversibility; risk of local optimisation.
Option B — Flow Pilot
End-to-end flow management at two sites; EUR 1.2m; six months; expected OTIF effect +3–5 points; medium disruption; high reversibility; evidence is limited.
Option C — Enterprise System
A common operating system at all sites; EUR 4.8m; planned horizon twelve months; expected OTIF effect +5–8 points; high disruption; technology and change capacity are material risks.
Option D — Wait and Learn
A three-month diagnostic cycle costing EUR 0.15m, with no direct OTIF effect; it reduces premature-investment risk while current losses and customer uncertainty continue.
Demand
The commercial forecast assumes 8% growth, but the scenario range is –3% to +14%. The point estimate is a forecast, not a guaranteed fact.
Pilot evidence
A prior area improved by 17%. At the same time, the area leader changed, product complexity declined and an additional planner was added. The full effect cannot be attributed to the management practice.
Technology and customer risk
The C vendor forecasts six months; two available benchmark cases took 10–14 months. A major customer warned that further OTIF deterioration could affect next year's orders, but no loss is confirmed.
Change capacity
An ERP migration, cost-reduction programme and commercial reorganisation are already running. HR describes total change load as high, without a standardised measurement method.
Constraints
- The 30-second entry uses no more than three numbers and starts with business tension, not a method.
- A, B, C and D are compared using the same criteria.
- Any fact capable of changing the option, timing, scale or confidence appears before the final choice.
- The recommendation includes its main risk and one explicit uncertainty.
- The leadership ask names who does what by when and defines the next checkpoint.
Case steps
Work through each prompt using the evidence pack. These guided cases support self-directed practice; server-scored attempts are not available yet.
Write a 30-second executive entry: what is happening, why it matters, why now and what next step you want. Use no more than three numbers.
Build a three-minute frame containing the decision question, 2–4 material facts, mechanism hypothesis, A/B/C/D under common criteria, recommendation, main risk, uncertainty and ask.
Answer: What would have to be true for your recommendation to be wrong? Which fact makes the cheaper option reasonable? What must the organisation stop doing to create capacity?
New evidence: the maximum effect of C assumes 95% utilisation while current utilisation is 74%. State what changed in the facts, interpretation, recommendation and information required next.
Record the final option or test, confidence 1–5, rationale in three sentences, information that could change the decision, owner and next checkpoint.