AD Writing
Decision paths in product organisations
Understanding how recommendations move through an organisation before they can become product decisions and outcomes.
Strong product work does not end with the right recommendation
A recommendation also has to move through an organisation before it can become a product outcome.
Through my work with complex product teams, I began paying closer attention to the gap between the people involved in creating a recommendation and the people who actually influence, approve and implement it. A Product Owner or stakeholder may understand and support a proposal without being the final decision-maker.
Evidence may need to travel through several people, teams or management levels before anything changes.
Mapping how a recommendation moves
This changed how I prepare product communication. Alongside mapping users, journeys, processes and dependencies, I now consider the decision path:
Who owns the problem? → Who has the knowledge? → Who carries the recommendation? → Who influences the decision? → Who makes the decision? → Who implements it?
Making this path visible helps identify where context may be lost, who needs evidence, who needs enough understanding to advocate for a recommendation, and where the actual authority or implementation dependency sits.
A solution must be able to enter the decision-making process
A solution that cannot enter the decision-making process has very little chance of becoming a product outcome.
This perspective was further shaped by User Experience University’s article Relationship Mapping for UX Leadership Success , which gave me a useful framework for articulating organisational dynamics I had already been encountering in practice.
I developed that thinking further by focusing specifically on how recommendations and decisions travel through an organisation.
Designing recommendations that can survive beyond the room
Product leadership, stakeholder and organisational awareness, evidence-based communication, decision-path mapping, and designing recommendations that can survive beyond the room in which they were created.