A mentor should not have to reconstruct your company from a folder of documents before discovering what you want help with. A short decision brief gives the conversation a starting point and leaves room for the mentor’s judgment.
The Mentor Decision Brief is an original Foundshore template for preparing one question, discussing it and recording what you decide afterward. It works with a booked expert, a volunteer mentor, a peer or another appropriate adviser.
The aim is a one-page working brief, not a miniature pitch deck. Keep attachments optional and limited. If the question needs more extensive review or professional work, agree that scope separately rather than compressing it into an ordinary call.
Begin with a decision, not a topic
“Marketing,” “fundraising” and “AI strategy” are topics. A decision specifies a choice, a next investigation or an uncertainty that affects action.
Examples include deciding which customer segment to test next, choosing what evidence is missing from a pilot, or diagnosing why a particular setup step is failing. The question can remain provisional as long as the uncertainty is explicit.
Write what a useful session would produce. It might be a better test, a clearer comparison of options or a decision not to proceed. Do not require the mentor to agree with your current plan for the call to count as successful.
The compact version
Field | What belongs in it |
|---|---|
Decision | The question and the date by which it matters |
Context | Company stage, relevant customer and the current situation |
Evidence | A few observations with source links or descriptions |
Options | Alternatives considered, including doing nothing where relevant |
Constraints | Time, budget, technical limitations and dependencies |
Requested help | Diagnosis, critique, a method, experience or a specific review |
After the call | Decision, next test, owner, review date and remaining uncertainty |
Use brief paragraphs rather than filling every line. The form is a thinking aid, not a completeness contest.
Put evidence ahead of interpretation
A useful brief tells the mentor what actually happened. “Four teams attended a demonstration and none completed setup during the observation window” is an observation in a hypothetical case. “The onboarding design is bad” is an interpretation.
Include enough context to inspect the observation: who the users were, what setup required, whether help was offered and what period was observed. A small sample can guide questions without supporting a general conclusion.
Do not overburden the brief with raw logs. Link or attach the smallest appropriate supporting artifact, with permission. The mentor can request more if the scope permits it.
Make alternatives visible
Write two or more plausible explanations or options when they exist. This helps the conversation test your reasoning rather than merely improve the wording of a preferred answer.
For a stalled pilot, alternatives could involve a missing internal owner, an unsuitable workflow or an unaddressed product limitation. The next step might be a question to the customer rather than a feature build.
Include what you have already tried and what it established. “We sent three follow-ups” describes activity, not what the customer needs. “The project owner said access approval is unresolved” is more useful context for a decision.
A fictional example
A founder is deciding whether to rebuild onboarding or provide a short guided setup. The relevant product requires connecting a customer data source. Trial users have expressed interest, but the founder has not yet observed a complete self-serve attempt.
The brief names the missing evidence, lists the two options and explains that engineering capacity is limited. The requested help is to design a small observation exercise before committing to a larger rebuild.
After the call, the founder records a decision to observe actual setup attempts with permission, note where assistance is needed and compare the findings with the initial explanations. The mentor’s view is recorded as advice; the founder owns the decision and its execution.
Nothing in this example is a reported Foundshore customer outcome. The completed sample supplied with the template is fictional and should be replaced with real evidence before use.
Keep the conversation’s output separate
Use the post-call fields only after the session. Record advice, the founder’s decision and the next test separately when they differ. A mentor can offer an example without recommending that you copy it.
Write what evidence would cause you to reconsider. Then choose a review date appropriate to the action. Avoid scheduling a performance review before the customer or product could reasonably produce an observable result.
A useful update to the mentor explains what you did and learned. Ask whether further contact is welcome; the template does not create an obligation for continuing support.
Handle confidential information deliberately
Prepare the smallest necessary context. Remove customer identifiers and commercially sensitive details that are not relevant to the question. Ask before recording, transcribing or sharing the session.
The template includes a material-sharing status so missing permission remains visible. Completing a field does not establish legal permission, confidentiality protection or professional privilege. Use the appropriate agreements and advisers when those matters are important.
Likewise, do not use an informal business conversation in place of qualified legal, accounting, tax, security or safety advice. The brief can help frame a question for the right professional, but it does not change the scope of the person’s role.
Adapt it to the kind of review
For product advice, attach the specific workflow or observation. For fundraising preparation, point to a claim and its evidence rather than asking for a general deck score. For hiring, define the responsibility and constraints rather than presenting a long list of candidate biographies.
When the scope grows, split it into separate decisions. A concise brief works because it preserves focus. It should not hide an entire consulting engagement inside one question.
Use the companion thirty-minute call guide for an optional session structure. The template itself is duration-independent and can support a longer, explicitly agreed review.
Browser tool and portability
The HTML version supports editing, a fictional sample, JSON import and export, and printing. It runs locally in the browser and does not submit your answers to Foundshore. There is no automatic persistence: export before closing or refreshing.
The Markdown version is suitable for a shared document. Keep a dated version before the call and add the decision afterward, so the record shows what was known at each point.
The tool’s status indicates whether key fields are ready for human review. It does not assess the quality of advice or guarantee that the selected mentor is appropriate.
A good brief reduces the effort required to understand your situation. Its real value appears afterward, when the conversation has produced a clearer decision, a feasible action and a reason to learn from the result.
Method note
This is an original Foundshore editorial framework. Scenarios and completed samples are illustrative rather than reported customer outcomes. The suggested process is not a validated performance benchmark.
