The symptom that names the problem: "We have many projects and metrics that no one is directly responsible for — and therefore, we get neither reporting nor action on them." And the sentence that produces it: **"One of you, please get this done."** Which reliably results in nobody doing the task. ### **What I'm thinking about** 1. **Everything gets exactly one** – Every metric, goal, project, meeting and decision has one named individual responsible for reporting status and pushing toward the goal line. Not a team. Not two people. One. 2. **The three standard objections, each with an answer** – *They're too junior to have authority*: "Someone as DRI is better than no one," and they can [[Clean Escalation|clean escalate]] to whoever does have it. *They'll optimise locally*: "This is indeed a problem. But the much bigger problem is the apathy that comes along without DRIs." *They'll make bad calls*: the DRI reports what they did, current status and plan — their manager remains the decision-maker on direction. 3. **The recruiter analogy clarifies the split** – A recruiter is the DRI for a search: they drive it, report on it, and own its momentum. The hiring manager decides who gets the offer. Owning a process is not the same as owning every decision inside it. 4. **No resources before a DRI** – "Do not allocate resources until the project's intended impact is defined and a DRI assigned. This action will cause short-term pain — projects taking a few days longer to get started — but long-term joy: no orphans." 5. **Projects need a kill cadence, not just a report cadence** – Report monthly. Decide live-or-die quarterly. Without the second, zombie projects accumulate and consume attention indefinitely. ### **So what?** The diagnostic is simple: take any recurring metric or workstream and ask who the DRI is. If the answer takes more than three seconds, or contains the word "we," it doesn't have one. Related: [[Areas of Responsibility]] [[Actions Must Be Inputs]] [[Clean Escalation]] [[RAPID]] [[Executive Operating System MOC]]