When our teams and departments need to make efficient decisions, it can be challenging. Decision-making is compounded by complexity, political interests and conflicting personalities.
With more at stake, productivity can slow down and consensus can seem a long way off. Positions harden, alliances form and people compete as discussions move in opposite directions.
Below are four essential strategies that STL has seen significantly improve decision-making within our own teams and delegate groups.
Select Relevant Criteria for Decision-Making
Decision criteria are the variables identified as vital to the team, department or organisation making the decision. Variables enable the people involved in the decision-making process to efficiently evaluate the alternatives. For example, if all of the vendors under consideration for a new outsourcing project offer the same basic service, then it makes sense to eliminate that criteria. Since there is no variation, we are not helped in our decision making.
Besides that, having measurable and relevant criteria helps a team to compare one option with another. For example, “reliable” product quality is only a useful criteria if it is qualified with measurable data such as, “zero product returns” or “98% of customers are satisfied with reliability of this product”.
List Pros and Cons
When discussions diverge and different groups favour particular ideas, a useful strategy for reaching a decision is visualising the pros and cons. It means that people can see the alternatives and consider different perspectives.
If clear options do not emerge, the decision-making team can score each idea. For example, +10 might indicate strong approval while -2 shows mild disapproval. When each option has been evaluated and scored, an overall positive score means your team can move forward with a proposal, while a negative one might suggest it should be modified, shelved or discarded altogether.
Clarify Assumptions
It’s crucial to identify any assumptions that may be guiding the team’s thinking. Some assumptions surface immediately. However, depending on the complexity of the issue, blind sports will likely exist. In order to pinpoint them, we need to seek unbiased help from people outside the team who can probe for any unspoken assumptions.
Unspoken assumptions can undermine many of the important decisions we make. Examples include: key talent will be engaged and on-hand; assumptions relating to customer needs or perceptions; market prices stay the same or competitors don’t have a product of their own in the pipeline.
Most importantly, once we know what our assumptions are, we can analyse each one for better informed decision-making.
Breakout with Buzz-groups
When a larger decision-making group hits a wall, it’s time to mobilise a subgroup to come up with fresh ideas. They can then return and discuss their ideas with the whole group.
Conclusion
Arriving at well informed decisions can be difficult. Deciding on your criteria to compare options, making a visual list of pros and cons for different options, being clear about your assumptions, and establishing subgroups to overcome barriers to the process can all help your teams to successfully reach an agreement.