Intrenion

Common Decision Failures at the Gate

Christian Ullrich
January 2026

Introduction

This document lists recurring decision failures that typically remain hidden during planning and alignment, but surface when a commitment becomes hard to reverse. These failures are not caused by missing analysis or poor execution. They result from decisions that were never made explicit, owned, or bound. The list is used at final commitment gates to identify why apparent alignment collapses under legal, financial, or operational scrutiny.

Decision failures

  1. What was described as a decision turns out to be intent, direction, or preference.
  2. Multiple stakeholders believe different outcomes were approved based on the same wording.
  3. Alternatives were discussed but never explicitly rejected.
  4. Downsides were framed as assumptions or risks rather than accepted consequences.
  5. Ownership is implied, shared, or delegated, but no single owner can commit.
  6. Responsibility for legal, financial, or operational consequences is unclear or disputed.
  7. Decisions rely on future clarification, governance, or follow-up that was never decided.
  8. A verbal agreement exists, but written commitments contradict each other.
  9. Decisions appear aligned until external review forces precision.
  10. A decision depends on constraints that another decision violates.
  11. Approval was granted to a document, not to a set of explicit decisions.
  12. Stakeholders agree in meetings but object once commitments are written down.
  13. Execution begins while fundamental decisions remain deferred in silence.
  14. Reversals occur informally through reinterpretation rather than explicit decisions.
  15. When pressure increases, previously “agreed” decisions reopen immediately.

If any of these patterns appear at the gate, the issue is not readiness or communication. The problem is that the decision set does not exist in a form that can bind execution.

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