Suppose you tell your team, 'Noah will prepare the report by 11.' That sounds like progress. The report still needs an independent review by noon, and nobody has been assigned to do it.
You have settled one part of the decision. The remaining requirement is still open.
A relationship map assigns Noah to prepare a report, shows the report he produces, and connects its review to an open choice labelled Reviewer unassigned. The matching schedule shows Noah preparing the report from 9 to 11 am, followed by a dashed, outlined required review window from 11 am to the noon deadline labelled Owner open. That outlined block represents required work without an assigned person; it does not reserve a reviewer.
In the previous article, we found a workable combination: Noah prepares the report, then Maya reviews it. Noah can finish at 11, Maya has the following hour available, and they are different people. To understand why this combination works, we need to say what the arrangement covers.
Start with the job you need completed. Here, the requirement is a report that has been prepared and independently reviewed by noon. Preparation and review each need an assigned person and a place in the sequence. The deadline applies to the completed review.
We can make those decisions explicit:
| Required part of the job | Proposed arrangement |
|---|---|
| Preparation | Noah prepares the report from 9 to 11 |
| Review | Maya reviews the report from 11 to noon |
| Independent reviewer | Maya reviews work prepared by Noah |
| Sequence and deadline | Review follows preparation and finishes by noon |
For this question, a complete candidate arrangement resolves the choices needed to cover every stated requirement. 'Someone will review it' leaves a choice unresolved. A list containing Noah, Maya, and Priya also leaves work to do: we need to know who performs each task and when.
Completeness gives us something definite to assess. It does not establish that the arrangement works. Assigning Maya to prepare the report from 9 to 11 and review it from 11 to noon fills both responsibilities and specifies their timing. It still violates the independent review requirement.
Ask two questions: have all required choices been resolved, and do they satisfy the requirements together? An open connection identifies an unfinished proposal; a filled connection can still violate a rule.
The scope of the question also matters. Our example assumes the necessary source material is available and that one hour is enough to finish the review. If review may require corrections and another review, that work needs a place in the arrangement before we can claim to cover it. If delivery to a customer is required, we must include delivery too.
Completeness is relative to the declared requirements. A task outside the model is outside this assessment.
Before assessing your own plan, write down what counts as finished. Then connect each requirement to the choices intended to satisfy it. Any requirement left uncovered identifies a decision that still needs attention.