Tools and Techniques for Decision-Making

It’s NOT always about saving or making Money, right?

The decision-making process ultimately helps find a solution to a problem by exploring various options presented and selecting the best outcome from them. The tools and techniques noted below will help strengthen the process by simplifying each step of the task in hand.

Consensus-seeking decision-making is a term sometimes used to describe a formal decision process like the decision-making variant known as "formal consensus" but with the additional option of a fullback voting procedure if the consensus appears unattainable during the consensus-seeking phase of the deliberation.

I have always thought, a great decision made was one which attracted most widespread approval (in my mind, at least) seeing nodding heads reassured me I was making the correct decision? No, this is not the best approach, this outcome provides the lowest possible common denominator: a choice that possibility everyone can live with, but not everyone is happy with.

Unfortunately, consensus-seeking can be seen to be extremely slow in achieving the desired outcomes, inflicted with time pressures and whatever else that may come your way as a leader to make the correct choice. Interesting but also reassuring to evaluate, is that most of the decisions made under pressure were at least just as good, or if not at sometimes better than the ones that I spent endless day pondering over.

So ask yourself the following questions:

• What makes them good?
• Can these be made quicker or even better?

If I had a crystal ball to predict this in advance, this would truly be beneficial, that said, the only real guarantee is to evaluate the efficacy of any given decision made, to assess the outcome, you will discover over time, yes the only way is the hard way, whether a decision made was for the good, the bad, or ugly.

Based on my experience, these are the core Tools and Techniques to help determine and form a good decision in my opinion.

Decision Tree?

This a visual tool that helps you make choices by showing the outcomes of different scenario and actions of multiple stakeholders, The strengths of decision tree methods are as follows;

• Generate understandable rules to represents the main problem or question based on criteria.
• Perform classification, prediction tasks, recommendations, and possible consequences without requiring much computation.
• Handle both Incremental and Breakthrough variables easy to understand and interpret.
• Contains conditional control statements.
• They are easy to understand and interpret, but they can also become complex and prone to errors if there are too many variables or data.

A?Decision Tree?is a?support?hierarchical model that uses a?tree-like?model?of decisions and their possible consequences, including?chance?event outcomes, resource costs, and?utility. It is one way to display an?algorithm?that only contains conditional control statements.

A Decision Tree structure in which each internal node refers to the "examine question" with branches (path indicator), Yes or No for conditional probabilities or further "examine question" to a possible End Result, typically represented by the conclusion of that Tree Branch and documented as per below;

Item Number

Item for Decision

Options Considered

Stakeholder Decision

Stakeholder Decision Maker

Date Communicated

Impact?

Commentary for Communication

Touching base with all Viewpoints

While consensus-seeking should never the best approach, ultimately this does not give you the freedom to act unilaterally. For any decision to be properly informed, you need to consult widely with those who can contribute in a meaningful way both?Incremental?and?Breakthrough?risk approaches.

This does not mean you should reach out for everyone’s opinion for a conclusion but choosing the relevant people with the correct in-depth knowledge and expertise in the subject matter in vital so that the task is not drawn out unnecessarily. Seeking valuable input is the primary source of a healthy and robust debate, it will provide you a better viewpoint of the problem in hand, in helping to solve and produce smart, effective solutions to inform the leaders decision-maker in making the best choice and why.

So, who would you seek feedback from and why ?

• Generally, someone who works on the shop floor, not necessarily a manager or discipline lead but in production where real problem may be felt.
• Selection must be the most comprehensive encompassing knowledge, experience, and perspective on the issues at hand.
• Seek input and guidance from team members who are closest to the action to provide creditability when debated.
• When required to do so, I recommend obtaining further guidance from Third parties or industry bodies.

The Root Cause

Typically, but most often or not you will be faced with a dilemma, we generally as expected tend to focus only to identify the symptoms, and not the real Root Cause issue raised in the first instance. Ignoring this fact, the same problem is for sure will raise its ugly head once again at an unforeseen point to potentially raise similar or even bigger issues further down the road.

Reaching out to the resources, disciplines, or a team nearest to the issue to urgently address the symptoms to close out, immediately.?

Always develop and document Cleary a plan to resolve the root cause to aid repercussions in the future and knowledge sharing.

Accountability

Even after gathering all the feedback necessary, you will still need to make an informed decision. Being accountable, you alone must be ready to claim responsibility for the choice of the decision made. Some leaders may find some comfort in having their decisions validated by others but suggest this approach is unpopular, weakens your leadership position, by watering down your decision-making and effectiveness as the person making the call.

As a leader you need to establish your footing, testing the waters, find new territories, believe me this can feel very scary at times, especially if you are new to a business or recently promoted to build your confidence in growing a team beneath you.

That said, it is vitally important to take control of each major decision, to ensure a clearly accountable person as the leader in providing a foundation of trust around you. Without the accountability, the only weapons are management by committee and the decision-making by consensus, be warned.

Holistic View

One way to build up your confidence is to regularly practice balancing the risks and potential impacts of each decision you make. This simply is a matter of thinking as broadly as you can to identify the “what ifs” of your choice. If recurring, how likely is it, will a potential negative outcome arise, and if it does, what would be the consequence(s) ?

By just making a simple tweak to alter the scope of one of your tasks, will require you to consider all possible impacts, budget, resource, duration, quality, and finally the customer experience.

Balancing Value

Finding the right balance between short-term and long-term considerations is key to unlocking the true value. It can be very tempting to only consider the short-term, which is so often overlooked, a curse that could possibly provide misjustice in your leadership and the decision-making that maybe purely based upon output of the moment and not the long-term strategy for the planned deliverables.

The further you progress into your leadership, the more pronounced it becomes when you do not pay ample attention to the long-term implications of your choices. The earlier you can incorporate this decision-making process; the better outcomes will be I can assure you of that.

Communication

Whereas you don’t necessarily want everyone with a passing interest to participate in the decision-making process, you do want everyone aligned on the outcome. That’s why communicating the substance and reasoning behind your decisions to all stakeholders is so important.

The purpose of this communication is not to seek approval or consensus on how you will solve the problem. Rather, you’re looking to bring everyone up to a consistent level of understanding, which is often necessary for the smooth implementation both?Incremental?and or?Breakthrough?decisions to be delivered.

Decisions are Timely

Speeding up your decision-making process starts with understanding the bottom line of a good decision. If you consider all the items listed above, then it’s simply a matter of addressing each one with a heightened sense of urgency.

For example, instead of painstakingly consulting everyone who wants to share their opinion, seek feedback only from those who can genuinely add value — and don’t wait for all of them to agree. Instead, use the decision tree answers along with your own judgment, to chart the best course forward with the information you are presented.

Many leaders may waver a little on decisions because they’re overwhelmed by fear of making a mistake or, even worse, of not being liked (you just cannot please everyone). But the extent to which you might labour on any facet of the decision-making process should be determined by one thing: risk. Your assessment of risk will dictate whether you should take a more or less cautious approach.

With a commitment to prospectively evaluating your decisions, you’ll find yourself able to make better decisions, faster than you’ve ever done before. Learning this as a young leader will accelerate your development and lift the performance of your team. The higher up you go, the greater the impact this skill will have on your organization’s culture and performance.

Conclusion?

As the conclusion, decision-making is a process involving choices. The process generally consists of several steps: identifying problems, generating and or evaluating alternatives, implementing the decision, and evaluating decision effectiveness.

All management goals or targets cannot be achieved without a robust decision-making process, every step taken in the decision-making process is important and leaders must consider them all to succeed.