Mandate
The authority to make decisions needed to remove bottlenecks (e.g. buying tools or outsourcing). Lack of mandate is a common pitfall.
Definition
The authority to make decisions needed to remove bottlenecks (e.g. buying tools or outsourcing). Lack of mandate is a common pitfall.
More context
Mandate is decision authority: the ability to allocate resources, change processes, and remove constraints. Without mandate, growth work turns into recommendations without execution.
Why it matters
Many growth bottlenecks are organizational (skills, time, ownership). Mandate enables solutions.
How to use it
Clarify what decisions the growth lead/team can make, define escalation paths, and align stakeholders around the cadence and goals.
Common pitfalls
Expecting results from a process the team has no authority to execute, or hiding mandate gaps until deadlines hit.
Related terms
- Growth lead — A person who centralizes and drives the growth process (e.g. monitoring OKR deployment, maintaining the cadence, and keeping the team aligned).
- Owner — The accountable person for a metric, area, task, or experiment. Clear ownership prevents work from stalling.
- Bottleneck — The biggest constraint limiting growth right now. The growth team finds the bottleneck, solves it using the process, and then moves on to the next one.
- Prioritization — The phase where you select what to test next based on likelihood of success, resource intensity (time/money), and scalability.