Decision pathways are the routes decisions travel through your community or group. They're about knowing who decides what and when, and how information reaches the people who need it. When pressure hits, confusion about roles or processes can slow things down just when clarity matters most.
Good decision pathways mean people understand their role before pressure arrives. This might mean knowing who can approve spending on urgent repairs, who coordinates responses to changing conditions, or who needs to be consulted versus simply informed. It's less about rigid hierarchies and more about clear understanding.
Mapping decision points helps. What needs quick action? What benefits from broader input? Who holds knowledge that should inform the decision? Talking through different scenarios while things are calm builds shared understanding. If funding becomes available unexpectedly, who can act on it and who needs to know? If a key person is unavailable, how do decisions still get made?
Thinking through scenarios together builds confidence and reveals where clarity is missing. After significant decisions or events, reflecting on what worked and what felt unclear helps refine the process and builds trust.
When decision pathways are clear, people can act with confidence. They understand how their choices connect to the broader effort. The result is coordinated action that stays responsive.
Something to chew on:
Does everyone in your group understand how decisions get made and who holds which responsibilities?
Resilience Bites offers weekly insights from the Australian Resilience Centre, drawn from decades of work alongside communities across Australia and internationally. Each Bite explores an aspect of resilience and closes with a reflective question to chew on.
Across the series we'll explore themes that shape resilience in practice, including place, patterns, networks, leadership, learning, feedbacks, thresholds and the deeper work of change.
This series is for people working in communities, landscapes, systems and change. It will help you learn key resilience concepts, apply them in practice and build our collective capacity to create resilient futures.
To learn more about the Australian Resilience Centre and explore our work and services, please visit https://www.ausresilience.com.au/
To read published Bites, please visit https://resiliencebites.ausresilience.com.au/
