The Twenty-Minute Decision
A regulated supplier problem at Wema. The options paper that made a hard call easy.
- Surfaces trade-offs
- Makes ideas tangible
- Senior stakeholders
- Regulated sector
- Where
- Wema Bank
- When
- 2022
- My role
- Head of Service Innovation, programme owner
- Themes
- Decision qualityOptions papersComplianceSuppliers
20 min
for a decision that could have derailed the programme
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01Situation
Halfway through replacing the card disputes system, the supplier told us a regulatory reporting requirement needed a customisation that would cost 15% more budget and 2 more months.
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02The move
I spent a week on an options paper with 3 honest options, each with its cost, time, risk and who would carry that risk. I had the head of compliance review it before it went anywhere, and I recommended the in-house tool with its downside stated plainly.
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03Result
The steering committee took 20 minutes and approved the recommendation with 1 amendment. The chair said it was the first time in a long while he had left a programme meeting more confident than he walked in.
The options paper, interactive
3 options, the compliance view already on the page, and a clock that ran for 20 minutes.
Option 1
Pay for the customisation
+15% budget
+2 months · green risk
Option 2
Build a small in-house reporting tool
Lower cost
Weeks, not months · amber risk
RecommendedOption 3
Descope and handle manually for 6 months
+0% budget
No delay to release 1 · red risk
“I recommended the in-house tool, and I was clear about why and clear about the downside.”
20:00
The situation
At Wema we had a programme to replace the system that handled card disputes. This is a regulated area, because the time you take to resolve a customer’s dispute is monitored, so getting it wrong has consequences beyond the inconvenience.
Halfway through, our supplier told us their product could not support one of the regulatory reporting requirements without a significant customisation, which would cost roughly an extra 15% of the programme budget and add 2 months. This is the kind of news that can derail a programme if it is handled as a crisis.
What I did
The easy thing would have been to take that straight to the steering committee as a problem and let them panic about it. Instead I spent a week building a proper options paper. I set out 3 options honestly. We could pay for the customisation. We could build a small reporting tool in-house, which was cheaper but added long-term maintenance. Or we could descope that one requirement from the first release and handle it manually for 6 months, which was cheapest but carried real regulatory risk.
For each option I showed the cost, the time, the risk, and, crucially, who would carry that risk. And I got the head of compliance to review the paper before it went, so that when the committee inevitably asked what compliance thought, the answer was already there in black and white. I recommended the in-house tool, and I was clear about why and clear about the downside.
Outcome
The meeting took 20 minutes. The committee approved my recommendation with a single amendment. And the chair said something that has stuck with me ever since. He said it was the first time in a long while that a programme had come to him with a problem and he had left the room feeling more confident than when he walked in.
The lesson
Decision quality is not about beautiful slides. It is about doing the thinking yourself, up front, so that senior people can make a good decision quickly, knowing exactly what they are accepting.
How I found out .
Each method, and why I chose it.
WhySenior people decide well when they can see the alternatives you rejected, and why.
The people it had to work for.
Composite and anonymised. Needs and frictions kept, names removed.
Persona 1 of 4
The steering committee chair
Sees 6 programmes a month. Most bring him problems.
- Needs
- He needs to leave the room more confident than he walked in.
- Friction
- Papers that describe a crisis and ask him to solve it.
Written on the
inside cover
- The supplier's problem was legitimate. Treating it as bad faith would have cost the relationship for nothing.
- A manual process is where late and wrong live. The cheapest option carried the risk nobody wanted to own.
- The committee did not need more detail. They needed to know exactly what they were accepting.
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“It's the first time in a long while a programme has come to me with a problem and I've left the room feeling more confident than when I walked in.”
The steering committee chair, as I remember it
The paper trail.
What we made along the way, and what each piece was for.
Most of this is under NDA, so each piece is described rather than shown.
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Options paper
3 columns. Cost, time, risk, who carries it, recommendation. The exhibit is a faithful rebuild.
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Risk ownership matrix
Which option puts the regulatory risk on whom. 1 table, 3 rows.
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Compliance pre-review note
Half a page from the head of compliance, attached to the paper before it went.
What changed, and what I keep.
- 20 min
- for a decision that could have derailed the programme
- 1
- amendment to the recommendation, then approved
- 15%
- of the budget the supplier's customisation would have cost, avoided
- 1 week
- spent on the options paper before it went anywhere
- The regulatory reporting requirement was met without a permanent manual process or a supplier dependency for every future rule change.
- The steering committee chair said he left more confident than he walked in. That changed how the committee received programme problems afterwards.
- The format (3 honest options, who carries the risk, compliance pre-reviewed) became my template for change advisory board submissions and executive risk reporting.
- 01 Decision quality is doing the thinking up front so senior people can decide quickly, knowing exactly what they are accepting.
- 02 Always show who carries the risk. Cost and time are the easy columns.
- 03 Get the answer to the obvious question onto the page before the meeting.
I would have had the supplier in the room for the paper's first draft. They could have costed their own customisation more precisely, and the in-house option would have been sharper for it.