One-page decision summary template: the only document a sponsor actually reads

One page at normal margins: the decision in the first line, options with cost, risk and effect, a named recommendation, and what happens if nobody decides.

Written last, read first, and in a lot of cases read instead of everything else. Your register, your models and your review log exist so that this page can be trusted. They are not what the decision maker is going to read. This is.

The rule that makes this document work

It fits on one page. Not one page at 9 point with the margins pulled in and the line spacing squeezed until it goes through: one page at 11 or 12 point, normal margins, the way the rest of the company writes. That is roughly 450 to 550 words including any table. The worked example below is 497 words, counting the text in the table cells and not the rules between them, and it is a full page.

When it does not fit, you cut the content. Every time you shrink the font instead, you are choosing to look like someone who could not decide what mattered, which is an odd first impression for a document whose only job is deciding what matters.

How to use this file

• Anything in [square brackets] is instruction. Delete it as you fill the section in.
• Keep the blocks in this order. The decision sits at the top because a reader who stops after two lines still has to know what you want from them. A To, From, Date and Subject header above it is fine as long as the subject line carries the ask, as it does in the example below.
• "The problem in three lines" is the block to cut first when the page runs long. The two limit lines, on what you could not price and what you could not answer, go in only when they are true. Everything else earns its space every time.
• No background section. No methodology. No "this document describes". Whoever needs the reasoning has the register attached. Two short blocks are the exception, both of them in the example below: one line on what you could not price, one on what you could not answer. They are limits rather than method, they take a sentence each, and a reader who finds them tends to believe the rest of the page.
• The worked example is the returns case published on analify.com: self-directed, built from public sources, and nobody inside the company was asked. It is the same page that appears in section 7 of that case, word for word, because a case with two different one-pagers has not made up its mind.

Section A. The worked example

To: Head of Customer Care From: Sebastian Koczyk, business analyst Date: 9 April 2026 Subject: Damaged-delivery refunds, decision requested by 30 April 2026

Decision requested. Approve automatic escalation of undecided refund cases after 48 hours, with a named owner per case, and a self-service form that collects photographic evidence before a person sees the case. Cost: one process change and a queue configuration. Effect: cases that currently stall get an owner and a deadline. How many stall cannot be answered from outside the company, and it is the first thing I would measure.

The problem in three lines. A damaged-delivery case that lacks sufficient evidence at the first call has no named owner and no due date. The only thing that moves it is the customer chasing us. Four of the ten public complaint threads I read ended in exactly that state, which is a count of ten threads and not a rate.

Options.

No cost figures anywhere on this page. I cannot price internal effort from outside the company, and an invented figure would be the first thing to break in the room.

Recommendation. Option B. It is two changes rather than ten, both are reversible, and it produces the measurement that tells us whether Option C is ever worth funding. Sebastian Koczyk, 9 April 2026.

If we do nothing. Nothing breaks visibly. Cases continue to leave through the customer's persistence, the five working day line stays unmeasured, and the cost sits with customers who give up and with agents who absorb the second and third call.

What I need from you, by 30 April 2026.

1. Confirm whether five working days is a commitment or a target (OQ-02).
2. Decide whether partial refunds are in release 1 (OQ-05).
3. Name the duty rota owner, and tell me whether it covers weekends (OQ-04).
4. Put the goods-in lead in the room before anything ships.

What I could not answer. How often cases stall today. It cannot be obtained from outside, and it is the first number I would pull with access.

Why that page holds together

• The first line is a decision, not a description. Somebody could answer it with one word.
• Option A is the cheap option that somebody in the room proposes every time, and it is written up as fairly as the recommended one, right down to the sentence that says it changes nothing anyone will notice. Three options where two are obviously silly is a worse look than one option honestly argued.
• The effort column has no invented money in it. "One process change, one form, one queue configuration" is a claim I can defend for five minutes. A figure I cannot source is a gift to the one person in the meeting who can, which is why the page says outright that there are no cost figures on it.
• Each unknown is stated once and then dropped. The stall rate carries its own denominator in the sentence that uses it, and the block at the end names the one number I could not get. Neither becomes a paragraph of hedging.
• The last block asks for four specific things against one date: two decisions, one name, and one person in the room. Three of them are open questions, and the fallback for each is in the attached register rather than on this page.

Section B. The blank page, ready to fill

To: [The one person who can say yes.] From: [Your name and what you were doing on this.] Date: [The date you send it, not the date you started.] Subject: [The subject of the decision and the date it is needed by. If the header is all a reader sees in a preview pane, the ask still has to be in it.]

Decision requested. [One sentence, then at most two more. The decision, what it costs, what it changes. The decision, the person who has to make it and the date you need it by all have to be inside the first four lines of the page; when the header carries the person and the date, this sentence does not repeat them. If you cannot write the first sentence, the document is not ready and no amount of the rest will save it.]

The problem in three lines. [Three or four sentences. The situation and what it costs, in the reader's terms, not the project's. If you have a number, put it here with its denominator and its source in the same sentence. If you do not have one, say what cannot be known and what you would measure first. Never fill this space with an adjective.]

Options.

[Two or three options. Not five. If you have five, you have not done the analysis, you have handed the reader your working.]

No cost figures anywhere on this page. [Optional, one sentence, and only when it is true. If you cannot price the work, say so here and say why. It closes the question before the finance person in the room opens it, and it costs less than a number you cannot defend.]

Recommendation. [Which one, and the reason in two or three sentences. The reason is the part that gets read: name the failure the recommended option fixes, and the failure it does not. If a reviewer has already attacked this recommendation, answer them here in one or two sentences rather than hoping the reader has not thought of it. Put your name and the date against it. An unsigned recommendation is a suggestion, and suggestions do not get decided.]

If we do nothing. [Honest. If nothing bad happens quickly, say so, and say what accumulates. Inventing urgency is the fastest way to lose the reader who has seen it done before.]

What I need from you, by [date].

1. [The decision itself.]
2. [The thing only this person can give you: a name, an approval, access, a budget line.]
3. [The open question that has to close before the next step. Reference it by its id; the fallback lives in the register, not on this page.]
4. [The person who has to be in the room before anything ships, if there is one.]

What I could not answer. [Optional, one or two sentences. The question you would put first if you had access. A page that names its own hole is harder to catch out than one that does not.]

[If the pack travels with this page, one line saying what is attached. The attachments are the evidence. This page is the ask.]

What to cut when it does not fit

In this order, and it is nearly always the same order.

1. The background. How the project started, who commissioned it, what phase you are in. Nobody is deciding on that.
2. The methodology. How you gathered the information belongs in the register, where it convinces a peer. Here it convinces nobody.
3. Adjectives, and the second half of every sentence. "Significant", "robust", "considerable". Read each sentence and delete the clause that adds emphasis instead of information.
4. The second recommendation. If the page recommends two things, it recommends nothing. Pick one and put the other into "what I need from you" as a later date.
5. Your reasoning about options you rejected before writing. They are not options. They are drafts.

Then read it out loud. The first draft is always half a page too long and one degree too polite, and reading it aloud finds both.

The tells that it is not ready

• No date on the decision. It will be read, agreed with, and not decided.
• No named owner. A decision addressed to a department is a decision addressed to nobody.
• Options with no risk column, or a risk column that says "minimal" three times.
• A cost you cannot defend for five minutes if the finance person in the room asks.
• The words "as appropriate", "if needed", or "further analysis is required" anywhere on the page.
• It runs to two pages. That is not a formatting problem. It is an unfinished decision.

Scorecard checks that apply to this artifact: 22 The first line states the decision being asked for, who has to make it, and the date it is needed by 23 Each option shows its cost, its risk and its effect on the problem named in the document 24 One option is marked as your recommendation and carries your name 25 The page says what happens if nothing is decided

Template 6 of the Proof Pack, from analify.com. Use it in your own applications and at work, including commercially. Do not resell it as your own product.

In the worked case

Section 7 of the worked case shows this artifact filled to the standard the template asks for: returns and refunds at a mid-size online retailer, built from public sources only, with every number tagged. Read it there, then come back to the blank.

The scorecard checks for this artifact

One page, written last, read first, addressed to the person who has to say yes or no.

All twenty-five checks, with the scoring scale: the scorecard.

Notes that work on this artifact

That is the sixth

The set is complete. Back to all six, or read the case that fills them from the brief onwards.

All six templates · The worked case · The scorecard