A.1.3 DRI expectations rubric
Summary
A Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) owns an outcome, especially one that crosses functions, systems, or contributors. This draft assesses Outcome, Ownership, and Judgment. A rating of 3 means fully meeting expectations: successful performance in the role. The rubric preserves the complete criteria supplied on October 2 and has not yet been adopted as policy.
Role and scope
The core question is:
Did you make the outcome happen?
A DRI needs a clearly defined purpose, domain, accountabilities, and decision authority. Accountability without corresponding authority creates responsibility without ownership. Define the intended outcome, constraints, quality, and timing before evaluating it.
Roles can overlap. Evaluate the roles a person actually held during the review period; IC, DRI, and PC do not form a required promotion ladder.
Expectations rubric
The three dimensions are Outcome, Ownership, and Judgment. Ratings describe the overall pattern of contribution and supporting evidence, rather than a checklist to maximize mechanically. A 4 or 5 represents meaningfully greater contribution, scope, or leverage than reliably fulfilling the expected role.
| Rating | Outcome | Ownership | Judgment |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 — Extraordinary | Repeatedly achieves outcomes that materially exceed the original objective or unlock substantial new organizational capacity. Finds ways to succeed despite major ambiguity or constraints. | Operates as the unquestioned owner of the domain. Anticipates dependencies, coordinates contributors, resolves ambiguity, escalates intelligently, and creates systems that make future delivery easier. Requires very little executive attention. | Consistently identifies the highest-leverage problems, reframes goals when necessary, and makes excellent decisions under substantial uncertainty. Insights from the domain improve broader organizational strategy. |
| 4 — Exceeds expectations | Consistently delivers the intended outcome at high quality and often improves meaningfully on the original objective. | Proactively drives planning, coordination, risks, dependencies, and follow-through. Ensures nothing important falls through the cracks and brings problems with proposed solutions. | Frequently improves priorities or approaches. Makes strong independent decisions, understands downstream consequences, challenges weak assumptions, and knows when to decide versus escalate. |
| 3 — Fully meets expectations | Reliably achieves the agreed outcome with appropriate quality and timing. Changes tactics when needed rather than mechanically completing the original task list. | Clearly owns the project or domain from beginning to end. Defines next actions, coordinates contributors, tracks progress, surfaces blockers early, and closes loops without reminders. | Understands the objective and constraints, prioritizes appropriately, considers reasonable alternatives, and makes sound day-to-day decisions independently. |
| 2 — Developing | Produces useful work, but achieving the actual outcome is inconsistent or sometimes depends heavily on intervention from others. | Owns assigned pieces but does not consistently drive the whole outcome. Dependencies, follow-ups, or risks sometimes require manager intervention. | Makes reasonable decisions in straightforward situations but struggles with ambiguity or tradeoffs and escalates decisions that should fall within their authority. |
| 1 — Below expectations | Activity occurs, but intended outcomes are frequently not achieved. | Behaves primarily as a recipient of tasks rather than an owner of the result. Work stalls without supervision and dependencies or unresolved problems are allowed to sit. | Requires substantial direction for routine decisions or repeatedly makes decisions that optimize the immediate task rather than the overall outcome. |
Applying the draft
Share expectations before evaluating performance. Discuss observable outcomes and behavior, using examples from the review period. Hours worked, messages sent, tickets closed, lines of code, and meetings attended do not by themselves establish contribution.
The supplied draft gives no weighting for the DRI dimensions. A combined-score rule remains unresolved; this page does not assign weights.
Details to confirm before adoption: the review owner and process, agreed role scope and expectations, evidence to use, assessment cadence, and how differences between assessments will be discussed. The companion staff guidance should own the common review process; this page owns this role's complete rubric.
For existing coaching practices, see Feedback and coaching. The other role rubrics are:
Further Reading
The supplied framework names From Hierarchy to Intelligence, Holacracy's organizational structure, Locke and Latham's goal-setting work, and Andy Grove's High Output Management as influences. Bibliographic details, relevant passages, and the attribution of particular claims remain unverified for the handbook. These are source-note influences awaiting citation review, not verified support or assigned reading.