Write down which recurring decisions a manager owns, the boundaries they work within and the exceptions that need escalation. Give them the information needed to act, and review outcomes without requiring approval for every ordinary choice.
For a UK founder with 20–50 employees, begin with one decision that repeatedly returns to you. A job title or responsibility list does not necessarily answer who has authority to decide.
Start with three fields: the decision, the named owner and the escalation conditions. Add the information required, applicable limits and how you will review the result.
Choose a specific recurring decision, such as agreeing a delivery change within confirmed capacity. Who decides, who contributes and who supplies the information? When several teams are involved, name who resolves a conflict.
Use the business's existing obligations, margins, capacity and authority when agreeing limits. There is no universal spending amount or contract duration that makes a decision appropriate.
Illustrative example, not a client result: a customer-service manager may agree a revised delivery date when capacity is confirmed and the customer accepts it. They escalate a commitment the team cannot meet, a disputed agreement or a recurring service failure beyond their remit.
Walk through realistic situations together. If two people interpret the same rule differently, clarify it before relying on it.
Check whether the manager can see what the founder knows: the customer commitment, available capacity, relevant costs and competing priorities. Make gaps in that information visible.
If capability is missing, provide support and state any temporary restriction on authority. A written decision agreement does not remove the need for sound judgement.
When someone acts reasonably within the agreed limits, support their ownership even if you would have chosen differently. Review what happened and improve the agreement when it exposes a gap.
Intervene when a genuine exception requires it. Explain any change to the boundaries, so the team can distinguish an exceptional intervention from a return to asking permission for everything.
Tell the wider team who owns the decision. Otherwise people may bypass the manager and continue going directly to the founder.
At the review, examine which routine decisions still reached you, whether exceptions were recognised and whether the information was reliable. Compare against the same starting measures.
Keep the agreement usable. The useful outcome is a manager able to make responsible decisions with clear visibility into exceptions, rather than a document that has never been tested.