Help & Guidance

Built-in DECIDE explanations and methodology guidance. Help & Guidance remains available whether AI is enabled or not.

The DECIDE lifecycle

A Change moves through six stages: DEFINE, EVALUATE, COMMIT, INITIATE, DELIVER and EMBED. Each stage has its own purpose, objectives, outputs and completion criteria, and the Current Stage indicator shows where the Change sits in that sequence. Stages that are not available in this release stay visibly unavailable rather than presenting unfinished capability as complete.

Human review of AI output

Artificial Intelligence (AI) output in DECIDE is information, guidance, a warning or a proposal. A practitioner must confirm or reject any AI proposal. AI does not approve a Change and never changes a record on its own.

Status is not relationship

Change Status is the DECIDE lifecycle position of a Change. Relationship indicators such as duplicate, overlapping, related, enabling, dependent or superseding describe how Changes connect. They are recorded separately and one never overwrites the other.

Three layers of help

Help & Guidance (this application-level popup) covers method and how-to. Stage Help is an overlay on each implemented stage page and explains purpose, objectives, outputs and completion. Context Help is the small beside a field or panel: point at it, or focus it with the keyboard, and its explanation appears without moving the page.

Change records and retention

Every Change is held in the Project Change Register with its owner, Change Source, source evidence and known assumptions or dependencies. Records are retained with the Project, so the register stays a single traceable account of what is changing and why.

Stage Help

Purpose

What you should accomplish

    Expected outputs

      What completion means

      New Project

      Add Project

      Fields marked are mandatory. The Project ID is generated by DECIDE and cannot be changed after creation.

      1 · Project identity
      Project name maximum 60 characters, including spaces
      Project ID
      Created by / Created on captured automatically

      Project description shown with the Project workspace as its context
      2 · Ownership & timing
      Project owner
      Target date / timing

      New Impacted Group

      Add Impacted Group

      Fields marked are mandatory. The Impacted Group ID is generated by DECIDE and cannot be changed after creation.

      1 · Group identity
      Group name
      Group type
      Group description what makes this one group, in the practitioner's words
      2 · How the group is defined
      Definition criteria the five criteria the model allows
      3 · Size and ownership
      Where they are located for example Leeds, Manchester, Remote
      Owner / contact

      Impacted Groups

      Select the groups this Change impacts

      These are the organisation's own groups. Selecting one states that this Change impacts it; nothing is typed. The derived Impacted Groups report reads the selection back.

      No groups selected

      New Stakeholder

      Add Stakeholder

      Fields marked are mandatory. The Stakeholder ID is generated by DECIDE and cannot be changed after creation.

      1 · Who they are
      First name
      Surname
      Job title
      Email
      Mobile
      2 · Classification
      Internal or External
      Category
      3 · Where they sit
      Business unit
      Department
      Team
      Organisation
      Location
      Manager name

      Upload

      Upload Stakeholders

      1. Template (optional)
      2. Add rows
      3. Review and confirm

      Add many stakeholders to this Project at once. You review every row before anything is saved.

      Template (optional)

      The first row must be the column names; they are matched by name. Save the completed file as a .csv, then attach it below.

      Required

      Note Organisation is filled for you: BING for an Internal person, and it can be edited for a subsidiary. Every other column must be filled in. Email addresses are stored in lower case.

      Add your rows

      Drag a .csv file here

      or

      CSV only. Up to 500 rows. A .csv is saved from Excel and attached here. An .xlsx file is not accepted.

      Delete Stakeholders

      This removes a Change link

      New department

      Add department

      Fields marked are mandatory. An entry is a department and the business unit it sits in, and nothing else.

      Business unit
      Department

      New category

      Add category

      Fields marked are mandatory. An entry is a name and whether it is Internal or External, and nothing else.

      Category
      Internal or External

      New Change

      Add Change

      Fields marked are mandatory. Every new Change is registered as Draft and moves to validation during the DEFINE Gate Review.

      1 · Change identity
      Title maximum 35 characters, including spaces
      Change ID
      Change status set by DECIDE
      Plain-language Change description
      Intended outcome / value
      2 · Classification
      Change Source
      Change Criticality
      Change Groups Select all that apply
      3 · Ownership & timing
      Owner maximum 25 characters, including spaces
      Timing maximum 25 characters, including spaces
      4 · Evidence & dependencies
      Source evidence reference
      Assumptions / dependencies
      5 · Relationship Separate from Change status
      Classification
      Related Change
      Impacted Groups chosen from the organisation's own groups
      Stakeholders recorded for this Project; link them by name
      6 · Change history
      Change history recorded automatically

      Created:

      Change

      Stakeholder

      Each value is recorded against this Change only. The Stakeholder's own record is not changed, and a value with nothing recorded is shown as Not recorded.

      New account

      Add user

      Fields marked are mandatory. The email identifies the person everywhere in DECIDE. The recovery code is shown once, after the account is created.

      Name
      Email
      Password

      Roles per Project

      Assign a role

      Choose a Project and a role to add it. Remove takes a role off that one Project. A person holding several roles on a Project holds the union of what each allows.

      Project
      Role

      Choose a Project and a role to add one.

      Nine roles: Product Owner (all Projects) and, per Project, Change Manager, Sponsor, Change Owner, Change Agent, Gate Approver, Partner, General User and Viewer.

      Reset password

      Set a new password

      The Product Owner may set a new password for any account. Give the new password to the person, who can change it later with their recovery code.

      New password

      Reset password

      Forgot your password?

      Enter your recovery code to set a new password. If you do not have it, the Product Owner can reset your password for you.

      Email
      Recovery code
      New password

      Signed in

      Account

      Restore

      Restore from a copy

      Choose a copy and enter its passphrase, then read what it will replace. Nothing is written until you confirm.

      The copy
      Passphrase