After weighing the merits of a variety of options, you are in a better position to make the best decision for the situation facing you.
To make an informed decision, you need choices—alternative courses of action you might take to resolve the issue at hand. Generating alternatives creates those choices. After weighing the merits of a variety of options, you are in a better position to make the best decision for the situation facing you. Here, it’s important to recognize that “go/no-go” choice does not mean you have generated multiple alternatives—go/no-go is only a single option.
Consider the following story:
Paul, a marketing manager at a consumer products company, calls a meeting with his team to discuss how to increase laundry detergent sales in Latin America. The meeting begins with silence as everyone waits for someone else to speak. Paul breaks the silence by suggesting they consider changing the current packaging. Following this cue, someone chimes in with supporting statistics about packaging of a product that has done well in Latin America. The meeting concludes with the assignment of a task force to research new packaging options.
This meeting seemed to proceed smoothly. But something’s wrong. Paul didn’t engage the team in generating alternatives. He didn’t promote healthy debate or constructive conflict. Instead, excessive group harmony resulted in an action step based on the first idea that emerged; investigate packing options. There was little creativity or innovative thinking. As a result, no new ideas surfaced. The group settled on the first alternative suggested, which had been Paul’s idea!
Paul could have helped his group generate a wider range of promising alternatives if he had applied certain practices, such as brainstorming, dialoguing, and promoting fair process.
ACTION POINT: Spark creativity by encouraging and seeking a wider range of alternatives when using a group to make a decision.
Friday, February 6, 2009
Thursday, February 5, 2009
Steps for Identifying Decision-Making Objectives
What are you trying to achieve by making a decision?
The following four steps can be used to help identify your decision making objectives.
1. Specify the objectives you want to reach.
What are you trying to achieve by making a decision? Make sure that as many people as possible with a stake in solving the problem are asked to specify their objectives, you may conclude you’re actually facing two or more problems, or that more than a few stake holders don’t understand the problem, or that different groups hope to see the problem solved in different ways.
2. Define—as specifically as possible—the performance level that represents a successful outcome.
Do you want a solution that boosts sales? By what percentage? For all regions? Be as precise as you can be.
3. “Paint” a picture of what things will look like when the problem is solved.
Invite stakeholders to describe the desired future state in as much detail as possible. Let imaginations a creativity run loose. Her, too, you may find significant divergence from one person to another. You may resolve differences by compromise, by straight selection of one view over another, or by determining that you in fact have two or more problems at hand.
4. Make sure your agreed-on objectives and outcomes are not in conflict.
You may have determined that part of your solution to customer complaints about telephone orders is to have all of your phone-order reps take an additional three weeks of training. Another part of the solution is to reduce standards for each rep’s completed orders per hour from eight to seven. But can you have the lower staffing levels due to training and the fewer customers handled by each rep at the same time? Will customers then complain more about long waits to have their orders taken? If yes, goals may have to be adjusted.
Once you have created a list of objectives, it’s time to think about the possible courses of action you may take to achieve those goals.
ACTION POINT: Use the four steps above to identify your decision making objectives.
The following four steps can be used to help identify your decision making objectives.
1. Specify the objectives you want to reach.
What are you trying to achieve by making a decision? Make sure that as many people as possible with a stake in solving the problem are asked to specify their objectives, you may conclude you’re actually facing two or more problems, or that more than a few stake holders don’t understand the problem, or that different groups hope to see the problem solved in different ways.
2. Define—as specifically as possible—the performance level that represents a successful outcome.
Do you want a solution that boosts sales? By what percentage? For all regions? Be as precise as you can be.
3. “Paint” a picture of what things will look like when the problem is solved.
Invite stakeholders to describe the desired future state in as much detail as possible. Let imaginations a creativity run loose. Her, too, you may find significant divergence from one person to another. You may resolve differences by compromise, by straight selection of one view over another, or by determining that you in fact have two or more problems at hand.
4. Make sure your agreed-on objectives and outcomes are not in conflict.
You may have determined that part of your solution to customer complaints about telephone orders is to have all of your phone-order reps take an additional three weeks of training. Another part of the solution is to reduce standards for each rep’s completed orders per hour from eight to seven. But can you have the lower staffing levels due to training and the fewer customers handled by each rep at the same time? Will customers then complain more about long waits to have their orders taken? If yes, goals may have to be adjusted.
Once you have created a list of objectives, it’s time to think about the possible courses of action you may take to achieve those goals.
ACTION POINT: Use the four steps above to identify your decision making objectives.
Wednesday, February 4, 2009
Articulating your decision-making objectives
What do you want the decision we make to accomplish
Once you have successfully framed the issue at hand, identify your objectives in determining a course of action. Ask you team questions like “What do you want the decision we make to accomplish?” and “What would you like to see happen as a result of the decisions we reach?” Invite group members to describe their vision of the outcome of the decision as vividly and specifically as possible.
For example, if you were the manager at New Age Electronics, you and your team might come up with the following objectives:
Reduce the average waiting time per customer to two minutes.
Reduce call volume by 40 percent
Reduce average call duration to three minutes.
During the objective-setting process, you may encounter significant differences in opinion from one person to another. This is a healthy part of the dialogue and should be encouraged. However, if you find your list of objectives spiraling out of control, you may want to revisit the issue you’re trying to address. You may find that you have more than one issue to resolve.
ACTION POINT: Visualize and identify the objectives for the decisions you make.
Once you have successfully framed the issue at hand, identify your objectives in determining a course of action. Ask you team questions like “What do you want the decision we make to accomplish?” and “What would you like to see happen as a result of the decisions we reach?” Invite group members to describe their vision of the outcome of the decision as vividly and specifically as possible.
For example, if you were the manager at New Age Electronics, you and your team might come up with the following objectives:
Reduce the average waiting time per customer to two minutes.
Reduce call volume by 40 percent
Reduce average call duration to three minutes.
During the objective-setting process, you may encounter significant differences in opinion from one person to another. This is a healthy part of the dialogue and should be encouraged. However, if you find your list of objectives spiraling out of control, you may want to revisit the issue you’re trying to address. You may find that you have more than one issue to resolve.
ACTION POINT: Visualize and identify the objectives for the decisions you make.
Tuesday, February 3, 2009
Performing a root-cause analysis
When confronted with a problem, think about how to frame the issue for your team.
To ensure that you get to the core of a problem, perform a root-cause analysis. During this process, you repeatedly make a statement of fact and ask the question why. For example Carla, the general manager of a pizza parlor, noticed that she was losing sales because her home deliveries were slower than her competitor’s. Her friend suggests that they invest in a fleet of delivery vehicles to solve this problem. Instead of jumping to this conclusion, Carla asks, “Our pizza deliveries are slow. Why? Our delivery associates drive old cars that are in poor condition. Why? They can’t afford repairs or newer cars. Shy? They don’t have the money. Why? Their pay is too low.” Through this process, she realized that the older, poorly maintained vehicles are a symptom of lower wages than those competitors paid.
Root-cause analysis can work well for an individual, a small group, or in brainstorming sessions. When confronted with a problem, think about how to frame the issue for your team. Be careful not to assume from the outset that you know what the problem is. Challenge yourself and your team to get at the core of the issue by framing the problem in a variety of different ways and assessing whether the available information supports your theories. Throughout the entire process, ask why and other open-ended questions (those not requiring simply a yes or no response). Such questions encourage exploration more than closed questions based on predefined assumptions about the problem or requiring a yes or not response.
ACTION POINT: Frame your issues with open ended questions.
To ensure that you get to the core of a problem, perform a root-cause analysis. During this process, you repeatedly make a statement of fact and ask the question why. For example Carla, the general manager of a pizza parlor, noticed that she was losing sales because her home deliveries were slower than her competitor’s. Her friend suggests that they invest in a fleet of delivery vehicles to solve this problem. Instead of jumping to this conclusion, Carla asks, “Our pizza deliveries are slow. Why? Our delivery associates drive old cars that are in poor condition. Why? They can’t afford repairs or newer cars. Shy? They don’t have the money. Why? Their pay is too low.” Through this process, she realized that the older, poorly maintained vehicles are a symptom of lower wages than those competitors paid.
Root-cause analysis can work well for an individual, a small group, or in brainstorming sessions. When confronted with a problem, think about how to frame the issue for your team. Be careful not to assume from the outset that you know what the problem is. Challenge yourself and your team to get at the core of the issue by framing the problem in a variety of different ways and assessing whether the available information supports your theories. Throughout the entire process, ask why and other open-ended questions (those not requiring simply a yes or no response). Such questions encourage exploration more than closed questions based on predefined assumptions about the problem or requiring a yes or not response.
ACTION POINT: Frame your issues with open ended questions.
Monday, February 2, 2009
Framing the Issue at Hand
…avoid the common error of seeking out solutions before you understand the nature (the root cause) of the issue at hand.
Once you’ve set the stage and recognized common obstacles that can stand in the way of decision making, you’re ready to frame the issue for your decision-making team. A key task during this step is to avoid the common error of seeking out solutions before you understand the nature (the root cause) of the issue at hand.
Consider the following story: New Age Electronics, a toy manufacturer, has a support phone line to answer customers’ questions about assembling its products. The volume of phone calls has increased so much that the phone-support associates can’t keep up with the demand. Customers have complained about waiting as long as half an hour to get help. Tai, the manager responsible for the support line, puts together a team to help him decide how to address the issue. He begins the first meeting by saying, “We have a serious problem with our customer support line. Customers are waiting too long for service. We need to fix it.”
Because Tai has framed the issue as a problem with the phone line response time, the team is most likely to focus on ways to reduce the response time—for example, adding more phone line, adding more reps, or increasing the hours of service. These solutions will address the symptoms of the problem—overloaded phone lines—but may not address the root of the problem.
To get to the root of the problem, Tai’s team should be thinking about why customer callas have increased dramatically. Is one product in particular responsible for an inordinate number of calls? Is there a flaw in the design of a product or in the assembly instructions? Are the phone-support associates poorly trained? Suppose Tai had framed the issue by saying, “We have a serious problem with our customer support line. The volume of calls has increased, customers are waiting too long for service, and we need to find out why. Then we need to decide what to do about it.” This framing would better guide the team toward uncovering the root cause of the problem. The team would thus stand a better chance of eventually deciding on a course of action that would address the cause of the problem instead of just treating a symptom of the problem.
ACTION POINT: Look beyond symptoms of issues to address root causes.
Once you’ve set the stage and recognized common obstacles that can stand in the way of decision making, you’re ready to frame the issue for your decision-making team. A key task during this step is to avoid the common error of seeking out solutions before you understand the nature (the root cause) of the issue at hand.
Consider the following story: New Age Electronics, a toy manufacturer, has a support phone line to answer customers’ questions about assembling its products. The volume of phone calls has increased so much that the phone-support associates can’t keep up with the demand. Customers have complained about waiting as long as half an hour to get help. Tai, the manager responsible for the support line, puts together a team to help him decide how to address the issue. He begins the first meeting by saying, “We have a serious problem with our customer support line. Customers are waiting too long for service. We need to fix it.”
Because Tai has framed the issue as a problem with the phone line response time, the team is most likely to focus on ways to reduce the response time—for example, adding more phone line, adding more reps, or increasing the hours of service. These solutions will address the symptoms of the problem—overloaded phone lines—but may not address the root of the problem.
To get to the root of the problem, Tai’s team should be thinking about why customer callas have increased dramatically. Is one product in particular responsible for an inordinate number of calls? Is there a flaw in the design of a product or in the assembly instructions? Are the phone-support associates poorly trained? Suppose Tai had framed the issue by saying, “We have a serious problem with our customer support line. The volume of calls has increased, customers are waiting too long for service, and we need to find out why. Then we need to decide what to do about it.” This framing would better guide the team toward uncovering the root cause of the problem. The team would thus stand a better chance of eventually deciding on a course of action that would address the cause of the problem instead of just treating a symptom of the problem.
ACTION POINT: Look beyond symptoms of issues to address root causes.
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