Decision matrix
A table mapping each kind of decision to who may make it, by what method, and within what limits.
Governance terms only mean something once they are written into agreements with a named process. Ask a community to show you the paragraph — and the last time it was reviewed. If a group can describe the feeling but not point to the text, treat this as an intention rather than a working system.
A decision matrix is one table listing the kinds of decision a community makes, and for each one: who may make it, by what method, and inside what limits. It is the least glamorous artifact in community governance and the one whose absence causes the most trouble.
Everything else in a group’s agreements describes principles. This describes practice. It is the document a new member can read in five minutes and know how the place actually works.
What a row looks like
| Decision | Who decides | Method | Limit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Repairs under €500 | Maintenance circle | Circle consent | Within annual budget |
| Annual budget | All members | Two-thirds approval | — |
| Admitting a member | All members | Consensus | After the full visitor period |
| Changing this table | All members | Consensus | Two-week objection window |
The last row is the one people forget, and it is the most important. A matrix that cannot say how it is itself amended is a document that will be changed informally, by whoever notices first.
Why it belongs in one place
Communities usually have this information. It is scattered across four years of minutes, a handbook nobody updated, and the memory of two long-standing members — which means that in practice the answer to “who decides this?” is “ask Marta”. That is not a governance system. It is a dependency on a person, and it becomes visible at exactly the moment that person wants to leave.
Writing it as one table also exposes the gaps. Almost every group that builds one discovers two or three categories of decision that nobody had ever assigned, and at least one that two different bodies both believed was theirs.
The RCOS Standard makes this a required artifact of Layer 2, alongside an authority registry naming who currently holds each role. The pairing is deliberate: the matrix says what the roles may do, and the registry says who is in them today.
Sources & further reading
- 1 RCOS Core — Layer 2: Governance & Decision Logic — §4.4 requires a decision matrix and an authority registry
Written by EcoHubs members, with AI assistance for drafting and editing, and reviewed by a person before publication. Facts are checked against the sources listed; anything we could not verify is marked. How this is written
Related terms
The decisions a circle or role may make alone, and the limits it may not cross without asking.
Sorting decisions by what they cost to get wrong, and giving each class its own method and timeline.
The written rules a community has consented to. Distinct from values: agreements say what happens, and what follows when it does not.