What is the decision assurance lab?
The Decision Assurance Lab runs 12 month simulation sprint to show how your choices play out across people, systems and economic forces. You get a clear view of risk and trade offs before you commit.
Optional deep dive for high stakes decisions
What the Decision Assurance Lab focuses on
The Decision Assurance Simulation Sprint is a short, optional add-on to your Ministry of Insights work. It takes outputs from Civic, Insight, Engage and Change Labs, then runs deeper simulations to test how your choices are likely to play out over a 12 month period across communities, teams, processes and capacity, taking into account trends and micro and macro economic forces. You do not get another tool to manage. You get a sharper view of risk, trade offs and consequences before you commit.
When to use it
Use a Decision Assurance Simulation Sprint when:
- The decision has real consequences for people, services or reputation
- Leaders or the board want stronger assurance before approving a path
- Signals from the Labs are mixed and you want more clarity
- Multiple initiatives collide in the same teams and you need to understand combined impact
- You want to avoid discovering second order impacts after the change is already in motion
- If the downside of being wrong is significant, this sprint helps you look again before you jump.
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Over a focused sprint we:
1. Frame the decision question
Clarify the specific decision or set of options to test, and agree success and risk criteria.
2. Build targeted scenarios
Use the existing Lab outputs to create realistic internal and civic scenarios. These cover capacity, workload, dependencies, change load and human response across key groups.
3. Run simulations and interpret results
Run internal simulations on your options, then interpret the results with you. We focus on practical implications, not technical detail.
What you receive
At the end of the sprint you receive a concise Decision Assurance Pack that includes:
- A clear summary of the decision question and options tested
- Scenario snapshots that show how each option plays out internally and civically
- Identified hot spots
- overload risks
- bottlenecks
- change saturation points
- quality and risk pressure points
- overload risks
- A comparison of options against agreed criteria
- Recommended path forward and suggested safeguards or phasing
- An audit trail of key assumptions that can be shared with governance groups
You can attach this pack to board papers, investment cases or internal approvals as supporting evidence.
How it fits with the other Labs
The sprint does not replace the Labs. It builds on them.
- Civic Lab helps you test policies and strategies on a realistic civic model
- Insight Lab gives you the current internal reality
- Engage Lab brings people into the design and surfaces risks
- Change Lab defines viable options and change paths
- The Decision Assurance Simulation Sprint uses those inputs to stress test the most important choices before final commitment
- Consult Lab then turns the agreed direction into detailed delivery and governance
This keeps your core engagement simple, while giving you access to a deeper level of assurance when it is genuinely needed.
Typical shape of engagement
- Duration: 1 to 3 weeks, depending on complexity
- Format: a small number of focused working sessions with your core leadership or project team
- Outputs: one Decision Assurance Pack, ready to attach to decision papers or use in executive discussions
You stay in control of the decision. The sprint gives you a clearer view of what each path is likely to mean inside your organisation and community.
Decision Assurance Lab FAQs
Do we always need a Decision Assurance Simulation Sprint
No. It is an optional deep dive for high stakes or high uncertainty decisions. Many engagements complete successfully without it.
How much extra time does it add
Typically one to three weeks, depending on complexity, with a small number of focused sessions.
What kinds of decisions benefit most from this sprint
Major restructures, high profile service changes, significant AI and automation programs, and large cross cutting portfolios of work.
Can we revisit a decision later using a sprint
Yes. You can run a sprint to review how a decision is playing out and test adjustments or next phases.
Is this only for public sector work
No. Any organisation facing high consequence change can use it.