Decision Rights in the Management Chain: Who May Direct, Evaluate, Reward and Dismiss

All courses / AI Boss / Module 4 / Chapter 20

Learning objectives

After the lesson the participant can:

• Explain the four questions a decision right answers and why they belong in one file.
• State who may lower, raise within the ceiling, and raise the ceiling of a degree of delegation.
• Apply the four conditions of authority, information, time and record to an M3 Consequence class.
• Write a decision-rights file with classes, ceilings, stop rights and rights fixed by law or agreement.

Key concepts

Decision-rights file

A single file per organisation that lists the classes of management decision, assigns each to a role, states the maximum degree of delegation to AI, names the stop and pause rights and records the rights that law or agreement fixes.

Function owner

The one person, normally the HR director or chief HR officer, who maintains a function's delegation profiles and answers for the conditions of delegated decisions. A person, not a committee, because a committee cannot be asked to explain a profile.

Four conditions for an M3 decider

Authority to decide against the system's output without penalty; information about grounds, data and what the system could not see; time, with a stated maximum volume; and a record the person concerned can see and contest.

Four stop rights

Pause in the unit by the line manager; stop system-wide by the function owner; technical stop outside the system by the on-call operator or contractual stop path; and the safety representatives' right to require an investigation.

May-feed list

For every M2 Evaluation class, the written list of M3 decisions its output may feed. A new recorded decision is required before it feeds another; Hansa's throughput class has an empty list.

Interactive exercises

Do them here and get feedback at once. Choose a card and then where it belongs, or drag it.

Teaching plan

Discussion

1. The chapter says a right held by management is held by nobody. Which management decisions in your organisation are held in that way today?
2. Lowering a degree or pausing a system needs no prior approval, while raising a ceiling is a decision for the management body. What does that asymmetry protect?
3. Under the answer to Q2 a defect in the conditions is a finding against the delegation profile, and the decider is not made the moral crumple zone. How would that change the way your organisation investigates a wrong decision?

Written exercise

Self-test

Choose an answer to see whether it is right, or open the answer below each question.

1. Under the chapter's answer to Q2, who answers when records show the decider lacked authority, information or time?

   1. Only the named decider, who is disciplined for accepting without reading
   2. The supplier of the system, under the contract's liability clause
   3. The function owner answers for the conditions, and the defect is a finding against the delegation profile
   4. Nobody, because the decision was formally taken by a person
   Show the answer

   C. The function owner answers for the conditions, and the defect is a finding against the delegation profile
   The decider answers to the person concerned and the decision is reopened on request; the function owner answers for the conditions and the management body for the allocation as a whole. The decider is not made the moral crumple zone.

2. How does Nordvik Region's file DRF-NR-01 set the ceiling for M3 Consequence?

   1. At Level 1 Assisted for any consequence decision, stricter than the book's default
   2. At Level 2 Supervised for all decisions, as the book's default allows
   3. At Level 3 Bounded for favourable decisions that apply a rule already fixed by the collective agreement
   4. At Level 0 Advisory for adverse decisions and Level 4 Autonomous for neutral ones
   Show the answer

   A. At Level 1 Assisted for any consequence decision, stricter than the book's default
   The book's default is Level 2 Supervised with Level 1 Assisted for adverse decisions. A public employer that has paused its one consequence system keeps consequences further out of AI's reach for now.

3. Why do both worked files separate the management function from the business function in the stop rights?

   1. So that the supplier can restart the system without the function owner
   2. So that pausing allocation to people does not stop claims from being routed
   3. So that the works council can stop the business process directly
   4. So that stop tests need not be carried out on production systems
   Show the answer

   B. So that pausing allocation to people does not stop claims from being routed
   The pause in the unit falls back to manual direction without stopping the business process: at Hansa the fallback for allocation to people is the team-leader queue, while claims continue to be routed.