RAPID

RAPID is our go-to framework for clear accountability and decision-making.

What is RAPID?

RAPID from Bain is a framework that assigns 5 key roles to clarify accountability and streamline decision-making.

Here are the 5 roles, where in our experience, people tend to use the initials - think “Who has the D?” - when describing each of them:

R-Recommend: who makes a recommendation
A-Agree: who must agree with a recommendation
P-Perform: who carries out the decision
I-Input: who is consulted on the decision
D-Decide: who makes the final decision and commits the org to action

One key call-out is R through I are often more than 1 person - the P, in particular, can be a huge team - and the D tends to be a single person.

This Bain graphic is a better way of visualizing RAPID because it shows the sequence of the R often kicking things off, the D sitting in the middle of everything, surrounded by the I and the A, and the P then taking action [sadly, RIDAP doesn’t roll off the tongue quite like RAPID does!]

The basics of why RAPID exists is that, especially as orgs scale, adding more process upfront can help eliminate the logjams that tend to arise around decisions. Long-timers are resistant to change initially - they remember the good old days of rapid decision-making and everybody being able to sit around a small lunch table - and then become converts as the pain level of inaction rises and rises.

When to Use RAPID?

RAPID tends to work well for:

Cross-functional projects: the P is usually pretty clear across functions, but who is making the high-level decisions is often murkier. Especially in a world where many tech companies are functionally organized versus having GMs who are the clear decision-maker.
Org changes: for major changes, the CEO is going to be involved, but it’s important to figure out whether she has the D. Similarly, as the org changes become less major - for example, entirely within a function - it’s helpful to know how low we can push the decision-making.
Hiring Decisions: at larger companies, for example, what role do CXOs have in hiring Directors and VPs who are 2 or 3 levels below them?
Strategic Planning and Budget Allocation: the Business Unit owner wants to grow faster at the expense of margin, but this doesn’t sit well with finance. Who “wins?”
Crisis Management: in a PR crisis, knowing ahead of time who’s the Recommender, who’s providing Input (often including legal), who needs to Agree on the message, who needs to Decide on the final approach, and, finally, who delivers the public statements.

As a real example that thankfully, rarely involved crisis management, here’s a real example from LinkedIn circa 2013, outlining how the whole process would work for our Corporate Blog (blog posts from LinkedIn’s central account):

Especially as companies get larger, it’s common to see multiple rows like above because the RAPID answer may differ depending on the specific situation.

Overall, the goal isn’t to bring RAPID to every itty-bitty decision but to ensure it’s used for important decisions. This means, yes, there is sometimes a RAPID on what initiatives need to have a RAPID applied…

How do we use RAPID?

John:

I’ve used RAPID quite a bit - it’s a key part of my toolkit - so here’s a few key Pro tips:

When orgs get good at RAPID, the D goes with the R at least 80% of the time. Recommendations are thoughtful, incorporate varied perspectives and consider trade-offs.
Connected, the farther down the hierarchy you can “delegate the D,” the faster your whole organization can move. Not every decision can be pushed down, but the mark of a slow organization is when all decisions, large and small, get bottle-necked with the C-Suite
A few best-practices when assigning roles:

If a functional leader’s team is heavily impacted by the decision (e.g. her team is responsible for the Perform), she should probably be an Agree
Don’t confuse an Input for an Agree! Decisions slow down when everyone thinks they have veto power. An Agree has a much stronger vote in the decision and any dissent should be noted in the Recommendation read out.

Everybody is entitled to know who the D is on any given decision; in fact, if you don’t know, it’s on you to ask
However, everybody isn’t entitled to get a decision made at any given time. The D has the right to pause on a decision, communicating their approach and potential timeline.

James:

The concept of speed of decisions resonates a lot and reminds me of our first-ever Blueprint, The Priority Matrix with LinkedIn COO Dan Shapero. Looking at our trusty 2 x 2 below, it can take months or quarters to make a “Big Bet” decision - think acquiring a company or launching/sunsetting a product - but hours to make “Small Win” decisions. Things tend to start going wrong when “Small Win” decisions start to get backed up. Connecting back to our second-ever Blueprint, Jeff Bezos’s 1-Way vs 2-Way Doors, it’s a problem if 1-Way Door Decisions (reversible ones) start taking months on end to make.

John:

I’ve found RAPID helpful in my revenue roles. As a sales leader, I’m successful when I can help other companies make fast, quality purchase decisions. When less experienced sellers ask me about ways they can get better and progress in their careers (which often involves selling to larger organizations), I advise learning the RAPID framework and apply it to help their prospects and customers make decisions.

While small companies can often make a purchase decision with only a few people involved, I find that mid-size companies (500-5K employees) often struggle the most to organize to make big decisions. Typically, they’re big and complex enough to require approval from multiple stakeholders, but not big enough that they’ve formalized a procurement process. I think simple frameworks are a great way to stay agile, shortcut bureaucracy, and still make confident decisions.

James:

Connected to your role as a revenue leader, I’ve found RAPID helpful on decisions that tend to fit right in between GTM and R&D. Two messy areas where RAPID can solve what is otherwise guaranteed to have confusion and likely friction:

Pricing: this is the biggest one because product tends to think it has the D, sales tend to think it has the D, and marketing often theoretically does, but when theory becomes reality on the ground, it doesn’t. Throw in finance, bus ops, and other functions, and suddenly, every functional leader thinks they either have the D or the A. Having the CEO make the call on which individual owns pricing - very likely not herself - is a shortcut to saving ongoing pain.
Launching B2B Products: in theory, this should be easier - it’s the product team - but when 4 weeks before launch day, product shares that it’s going to slip on shipping 2 of its 7 expected features, it becomes a mess to decide whether to still launch the incomplete product or whether to postpone the launch that the GTM team has already orchestrated. RAPID charts don’t fully solve every issue like this one, but they can at least minimize the thrash to truly exceptional circumstances.

John:

One final call out with RAPID: it’s primarily a decision-making framework and not a project management framework. DACI and RACI are a few other popular mnemonics that are great for project management, helping teams identify roles and responsibilities among a project team. All are useful, but James and I both learned that speed and quality of decision-making is a must-have in high-growth environments, and so favour an organizational tool that solves decisions.

James:

My final RAPID thought is that about 80% of the framework is getting aligned on the framework upfront. The other 20% is ensuring it’s followed and tweaking it as necessary, but it’s mainly about getting people on the same page upfront. The conversation that it sparks can be more helpful than whatever the end result is.

Want to learn more?

WANT TO GO DEEPER ON RAPID?

Here’s Bain’s page for RAPID:

RAPID® Decision Making

When the roles involved in decisions are clearly delineated, teams and organizations make the right choices.

www.bain.com

WANT TO GO DEEPER ON RELATED FRAMEWORKS?

Directly connected to RAPID, for driving change through an organization - before, during, and after a big decision - we’re both big proponents of Mike Derezin’s 2-Part Blueprint:

The Support Continuum

Intrapreneur and longtime LinkedIn VP Mike Derezin shares our favourite framework for leading large groups through change, including how to overcome the dreaded “passive resistor.”