How the Deciding function becomes governance in project terms. The systemic function that gives every other function permission to act.

The participants are about to hand their Climate Action Plan review to the school. But a plan without governance is a plan that sits in a drawer. This module ensures the school knows who is responsible for what, who makes decisions, how progress is reviewed, and how the work continues after the cohort leaves.

Learning objectives

By the end of this module, participants will be able to:

  • Understand what governance means and why it matters for implementation
  • Write a Terms of Reference for the school Climate Action Plan
  • Build a RACI matrix assigning roles for implementation
  • Understand the difference between responsibility and accountability
  • Conduct a simple options appraisal using weighted criteria
  • Apply options appraisal to plan a fundraising event for a charity
  • Connect the Deciding function to governance roles in projects and organisations

Sections

  • 7.1 Why Governance Matters
  • 7.2 The Terms of Reference
  • 7.3 The RACI Matrix
  • 7.4 Options Appraisal: The Method
  • 7.5 Options Appraisal: Plan a Fundraising Event
  • 7.6 Presentation Planning

Cross-curriculum

Suggested evidence types

  • Terms of Reference for the school Climate Action Plan
  • RACI matrix assigning implementation roles
  • Options appraisal worksheet for the fundraising-event task
  • Reflection on a decision the learner has been part of and how it was governed (well or badly)

Verse-ality alignment

This module is the curriculum-level expression of bounded autonomy — every role has clearly bounded responsibility (R) and accountability (A), and the system works because those boundaries hold. The same principle Verse-ality applies to AI agents: every agent has a defined scope of action and the human is the accountable party.