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3 Decision-Making Techniques to Suit
Any Purpose, Project, or Need
by Adele Sommers
Is there a secret to making stellar
decisions? I’m talking about a process that:
- Engages people in reaching satisfying, robust conclusions
- Guides thorny, complex problem-solving with relative
ease
- Averts expensive project failures instead of causing
them
Decisions made during problem-solving
sessions are legacies businesses often have to live
with for a long time! Not every decision requires special
attention; many are simple and routine.
But the more risky, costly, or large-scale
a problem or project is, the more attention it requires.
In these instances, the aftereffects can come back to
haunt people who bypassed good decision-making procedures.
This article explains three ways to get superior
results from your decision-making processes.
Avoid
“Mission Impossible”...
Remember the old saying: “If you fail to plan,
you plan to fail”? The quality of the decisions
people make in group settings determines the long-term
benefits of those decisions. Unfortunately, potent tools
and techniques for making complex decisions and solving
tricky problems don’t seem to be widely understood.
 Decision-making
techniques are critical for managing projects,
for example, where they should be visible in every aspect
of project planning. Imagine an aerospace company that
designs and builds highly complicated satellite equipment.
The potential exists for large-scale fiascos if every
facet of every phase doesn’t come together perfectly!
Yet, for various reasons, decision-makers
often feel pressured to arrive at expedient outcomes
when working on critical issues under short deadlines.
Sidestepping sound decision-making techniques often
occurs in the planning stages “for the sake of
the schedule.” But rushing through a project can
easily backfire, and actually cause it to go over-budget
and end much later than the original schedule would
have required.
You’ve probably noticed that the
consequences of poor decisions — where people
hurried to make a decision without weighing all of the
important issues — can range from annoying to catastrophic.
...And
Turn It into “Mission Possible”!
If you’ll recall in the “Mission
Impossible” series, the characters invented ingenious
maneuvers and planned every aspect of the project down
to the most minute detail. Even though it wasn’t
always obvious to us — the viewers — the mission
planners and implementers had to weigh the risks, alternatives,
and “what if” scenarios of every potential
outcome. All of these actions contribute to great decision
making.
 The
best decisions for difficult problems can withstand
future challenges because they use structured techniques.
These techniques help the participants
generate breakthrough ideas, jointly analyze risk, and
weigh alternatives. Intricate decisions made without
them can quickly fall apart and may even cause harm.
So to arrive at great group decisions, I rely on proven,
highly adaptable methods such as these:
1. A silent brainstorming process
that leads to breakthrough thinking with exceptionally
good results. It uses an affinity diagram.
Why is silent brainstorming useful?
The process of generating brand, new ideas naturally
excites our filtering mechanisms — the ones that
protest that we’ve already “been there, done
that,” or that someone’s new idea can’t
work “because...”. Silent brainstorming, on
the other hand, helps us get past those instinctive
hurdles to expose new frontiers that we might not have
explored.
2. A handy problem-solving tool that
helps people identify underlying causes of challenging
problems. It uses a root cause diagram.
Why is getting at root causes necessary?
Because too often, we fail to look deeply enough at
what’s responsible for a particular problem. There
may be a whole series of nested or interconnected reasons
for orders not being filled correctly, for example.
The answer could be far simpler than anyone thought,
such as a faulty printer ribbon that doesn’t print
orders clearly, rather than, say, a training issue.
We wouldn't know without asking “why” from
several angles and points of view.
3. A tidy decision-making technique
that enables a group to compare ideas and alternatives.
It uses a prioritization matrix.
Why is prioritizing valuable? It’s
one of the ways we can best assess the relative merits
of one idea over another, especially when each has several
complex components. Using a tool with a built-in scoring
system can coax the real victor to emerge, clearly separating
it from the “runner ups.”
In conclusion, structured decision-making
produces sturdy, satisfying results — even for
complex projects or problems — while boosting morale
and productivity. For more information on these methods,
you may want to explore the decision-making tools and
guidebooks at GoalQPC.com.
Copyright 2005 Adele Sommers
Want to include this article in your newsletter
or Web site? You can, as long as you include this
blurb with it: Adele Sommers, Ph.D. is the creator of
the award-winning "Straight Talk on Boosting Business
Performance" success system. To learn more about
this step-by-step program, and to access her many no-cost
articles and resources, visit LearnShareProsper.com.
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