---
id: "concept-curated-options"
type: "concept"
source_timestamps: ["§ What Is Structured Empowerment?"]
tags: ["decision-architecture", "knowledge-management"]
related: ["concept-input-options", "concept-process-options", "claim-choice-architecture-limits", "concept-structured-empowerment"]
definition: "A limited menu of vetted, high-performing practices that employees can choose from to deliver value."
sources: ["tail1"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-tail1"
originDay: 1
articleStem: "hbr-tail-105-fast-growing-better-decisions"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2026/05/how-fast-growing-companies-can-make-better-decisions"
sourceTitle: "How Fast-Growing Companies Can Make Better Decisions"
---
# Curated Options

**Curated options** are vetted practices that capture what works best across a company, allowing employees to choose *which* practices to use and *how* to apply them.

These options typically **emerge from the habits of high performers** and are shared widely to lift baseline performance. To prevent decision paralysis, the menu must be **limited — typically 6–7 options**, aligning with working-memory limits (see [[claim-choice-architecture-limits]]).

Curated options divide into two categories:
- [[concept-input-options]] — the **"What"**: resources, materials, and configurations.
- [[concept-process-options]] — the **"How"**: modularized tasks and routines.

Curating these options is the first component of [[concept-structured-empowerment]] (paired with [[concept-key-results-accountability]]) and is operationalized in [[action-curate-limited-options]].

> **Enrichment.** The framework strictly caps human-facing menus at 6–7 even as options can increasingly be AI-generated in real time — an open governance tension captured in [[question-ai-option-generation]].