Before you show the board a delegation framework, war-game it against decisions you have already made. Write down what the chief executive decides alone, what needs executive alignment, and what needs board notice or approval, then run last quarter's real decisions through it. Paste the framework, the board's reserved matters, recent decisions with who actually made them, and notes on past disputes into one request. Instruct Pingpong to flag decisions that fit no tier, thresholds that conflict with what the board has reserved, and escalation paths that end without anyone deciding. Review your written answers in a second round.
This page is for chief executives and executive teams preparing a decision-rights framework the board will review, often after a new director joins or a decision went around someone. Executive starting points live under Pingpong for executives.
Where each decision lands
- Chief executive alone: hiring and exits below the executive team, spending inside the approved budget, priorities within the approved strategy, and most reversible calls.
- Executive alignment: anything that moves another leader's budget, headcount, or roadmap, and cross-functional commitments made to customers.
- Board notice: an executive departure, a material customer loss, a threatened lawsuit, a security incident, and anything a director would be unhappy to learn from someone else.
- Board approval: the annual budget, equity grants, debt, acquisitions, entering or leaving a line of business, and whatever the governing documents reserve. Counsel confirms that list. Pingpong checks whether your framework matches it.
The tiers are the easy part. Most fights happen over decisions that sit between two of them.
How frameworks drift
In most companies the written decision rights and the real ones drift apart within a year. A sales leader approves a discount that quietly rewrites the product roadmap. A director who used to run a company calls a vice president directly and gets a yes. The chief executive settles something in a hallway that the framework says belongs to the team. Nobody notices until two people both believe they own the same call. A war-game finds the drift while it is still a matter of wording.
A worked example
This example is illustrative and does not describe a customer. A 300-person company has added an independent director, who asks the chief executive to bring a delegation framework to the next board meeting. The request follows a pricing change that went out before the finance leader knew about it. The chief executive's draft is a two-page table.
The chief executive pastes the draft, the investor agreement's reserved matters, twenty recent decisions with who made each, and notes on two disputes.
A useful pass finds that six of the twenty decisions fit no tier, including pricing, which the draft never mentions. The draft sets the chief executive's spending authority above the amount the investor agreement allows without board consent. Escalation ends with "the executive team discusses," and names no one to decide when they disagree. Board notice has no timeline. Two of the twenty decisions came from a director calling a vice president directly, and the framework says nothing about that.
The revised framework makes pricing an executive alignment decision owned jointly by the finance and revenue leaders, with the chief executive breaking ties. Spending authority drops to match the investor agreement, and counsel confirms the figure. Escalation gets a clock: two business days at the executive level, then the chief executive decides and writes down the reason in the weekly notes. The board hears about listed events within 48 hours. Directors route requests through the chief executive or the board chair. The chief executive presents the framework by walking three of the twenty decisions through it, including the pricing change it would have caught.
If the framework comes with new reporting lines, see war-game a reorg before you announce it.
What the board will ask
- Which decisions are reserved to us, and does the framework match the governing documents?
- When the executive team disagrees, who decides, and how quickly?
- What will we hear about between meetings, and how soon?
- How will we know the framework is being followed? A quarterly list of decisions made near each threshold.
A request you can copy
Below are our draft delegation framework, the board's reserved matters, twenty recent decisions with who made each one, and notes on recent disputes. Place each decision in a tier and list any that fit none. Flag thresholds that conflict with the reserved matters. Find escalation paths that end without a named decision-maker. Note where board notice has no timeline. List the questions directors are likely to ask. Stop there so we can answer in writing, then review our answers.
How Pingpong runs the review
The web review app sends your request through several models in order. Each later model receives the original request and every earlier answer, with instructions to assess the work so far. For the steps inside the app, see running your first review.
What a model can't review
A model cannot tell how much your directors trust the team, or whether a long-serving leader will accept losing a decision they have always made. It can show where the framework is unclear. The conversations that settle it are yours.
When the decision goes to the board, see war-game a decision before the board meeting. More guides live under work decisions before you commit.