Decision Assessment Tool
DOCX download
Decision Assessment Tool
Free editable Word guide you can copy, fill in, and share with your band. Also readable on this page.
How to use this guide
Tool for assessing whether to keep or replace a member. Expect a scored assessment naming the decision, what is known, what is still unknown, and a firm decide-by date.
Suggested workflow: one person drafts the Decision, Known, and Unknown lines first, the band argues them at rehearsal, then the decide-by date goes straight onto the shared calendar that night.
Major calls made from anxiety need structure: lineup changes, debt, brand pivots, exclusive deals.
Facts versus fears
Before anyone starts lobbying, list what the band genuinely knows, what remains honestly unclear, and what is merely assumed about the call in front of you. Replacing a drummer looks different once “he missed four rehearsals” sits beside “nobody ever told him the new start times.”
Give research a hard stop and a named gatherer for every open question, since endless information collecting is avoidance wearing a professional costume. Fears earn small, cheap tests — let the new singer front two paid gigs before any vote on replacing her — rather than automatic veto power, unless safety is genuinely at stake.
Only high stakes
Irreversible or expensive calls deserve the full treatment: cutting a founding member, taking on van debt, pivoting the brand, or signing an exclusive management deal. Running identical machinery over a poster font trains everyone to treat that machinery as theater, and it fails exactly when it matters most.
A handy filter is the cost of being wrong multiplied by how hard the call is to undo later. Cheap and reversible gets a five-minute chat at rehearsal; expensive and permanent earns written criteria, a scoring pass, and a firm deadline, because those are the moments bands regret improvising.
Tie-breaks and decide-by dates
Split-vote stalls kill momentum, so name the tie-breaker for each domain long before any heated moment arrives: the musical director for songs and arrangements, whoever handles business for money and contracts. A deadlock with a pre-agreed breaker resolves in one evening instead of festering for a month.
The moment a major question opens, put the closing deadline on the shared calendar that same hour, because open loops otherwise live forever and quietly poison every rehearsal. Once the van purchase must be settled by the fifteenth, the thread stops relitigating it on the sixteenth.
Fill-in: Assessment
Decision: ________
Known: ________
Unknown: ________
Decide-by date: ________
Putting it into practice
If a major call is open, set a decide-by date today.
FAQ
What decisions deserve a formal assessment?
Irreversible or expensive ones: lineup changes, debt, brand pivots, exclusive deals. Not every font choice.
How do we separate facts from fears?
Write what is known, unknown, and assumed. Fears get tested; they do not automatically win the vote.
What if we lack information?
Time-box research, assign owners, and set a decision date. Infinite information gathering is avoidance.
Who breaks ties?
Name a domain owner in advance (music vs business). Tie votes without a breaker stall the band.
