Which review, by whom, from what?
The first line fixes the review in time: the role, the period, the date, the reviewer's name, and a pointer to the FTE's own report for that period in its Performance tab. It exists so that the note can be found from the report and the report from the note, and so that a later reader knows whose judgement the decisions were.
Verify: the line names a period that matches the report's, and the reviewer is the role's named manager in the workforce view.
- Role ______ Period ______ Date ______ Reviewer ______
- FTE report: Performance tab, period ______
What was decided about the targets, and on what evidence?
The second line records the targets decision: kept as they are, or which items were changed, added, or dropped, and whether any FTE-suggested additions were accepted or declined, with the evidence in the Targets tab that supports the decision. A target dropped because it measured the wrong thing is named, with what replaced it, so that results before and after are not blended.
Verify: every changed target names the evidence source it was judged on.
- Targets: kept / changed ______ / added ______ / dropped ______
- FTE suggestions: accepted ______ / declined ______ because ______
What was decided about the remit, from which send-back pattern?
The third line records the remit decision, traced to the send-back reasons read during the review: the rule added because a reason repeated in a category, the category added to the always-escalate list after an incident, the Brand Brain item corrected because drafts kept being wrong the same way. If no change was made, the line says so and names the categories read.
Verify: each remit change appears in Setup's change log with the same reason.
- Remit: no change / rule added ______ because reason ______ repeated in ______
- Escalate list: addition ______ after ______
- Brand Brain: corrected ______
What was decided about autonomy, for which class, on what record?
The fourth line records the autonomy decision per class considered: promoted, with the class, the new level, the bounds, and the length of clean run it rested on against the written standard; stepped back, with the class and the send-back or change that triggered it; or declined, with the reason, such as the run being short. It never records a blanket change, because there is no such thing on the ladder.
Verify: every promotion or step-back in the line matches a logged grant or change in Setup with the same date.
- Class ______: promoted to ______ within ______ on ______ clean proposals over ______ weeks
- Class ______: stepped back because ______
- Class ______: declined; run ______ short of standard ______
What was found that is not the FTE's to fix?
The fifth line records what the review surfaced that belongs to someone else: a knowledge base article that was wrong, a fee schedule that changed without the memory being updated, a connection that should be narrowed, a target the business no longer wants, an approver who is not approving. Each names an owner and, where possible, a date. This line is where most of the operational value of the review lives.
Verify: each item has a named owner, and the next review checks whether it was done.
- Found ______ → owner ______ by ______
- Found ______ → owner ______ by ______
Why is the note only five lines?
Because a note nobody writes is worth nothing and a note nobody reads is worth little. Five lines take two minutes, which is short enough to happen every month, and they hold every decision with its evidence, which is enough for an auditor, a governance reviewer, or a successor manager. The FTE's own report carries the narrative; the note carries the decisions.
Twelve notes read in twenty minutes are a year's history of how the delegation matured: what was promoted when and why, what was stepped back, how the remit converged. That is the document a new manager reads first.
How do you use this template?
Copy the five blocks into wherever the organization keeps its decision records, or into the review's own note field in the workspace, and fill them at minute 28 of the thirty-minute review. Do not write more; if a decision needs a paragraph, the paragraph belongs in the remit's change reason or the incident record, and the note points to it. Keep every note; never overwrite last month's.
At the quarterly governance audit, the three notes for the quarter are read alongside the audit trail to confirm that what was decided is what happened.