Most consulting engagements are too broad. They start with a general question, expand during the discovery phase, and end with a document that addresses everything and commits to nothing. The decision support format is a deliberate correction to that pattern.
01 Why broad scope produces vague output
When a consulting engagement covers multiple questions simultaneously, the consultant has to allocate attention across all of them. The questions that are hardest to answer get the least attention, because the easier ones fill the available time. The final document reflects this: it is thorough on the easy questions and thin on the hard ones.
The client, meanwhile, usually already knew the answers to the easy questions. What they needed was help with the hard one. The broad engagement has produced a lot of paper and not much progress on the thing that actually mattered.
02 What a single-question engagement looks like
The engagement starts with a briefing call to define the question precisely. This is harder than it sounds. Most clients arrive with a situation, not a question. The briefing call turns the situation into a question specific enough to be answered in a week.
We then spend the week doing background research and speaking with relevant stakeholders inside the client organisation. The output is a single written document: the question as defined, the relevant context, the options considered, and a clear recommendation with the reasoning behind it.
03 When this format is and is not appropriate
Decision support works well when the decision is genuinely discrete: a market entry question, a structural choice between two options, a build-or-buy question. It works less well when the decision depends on resolving a prior strategic ambiguity. In that case, the strategy clarification engagement is the right starting point.
If you are not sure which applies to your situation, the first call will usually make it clear.
One question, answered well, is worth more than ten questions answered adequately.