The Three Foundational Elements of Good Decision-Making

 

I think most project leaders would agree that a big part of managing work is making decisions. Like most of you, I've worked with great decision-makers as well as some really bad decision-makers. Scott Adams, the creator of the Dilbert comic strip once said, "Informed decision-making comes from a long tradition of guessing and then blaming others for inadequate results."

Adams description of how decisions are made might be accurate for many organizations. Over the years of my career I've noticed that many organizations don't foster good decision-making practices—handicapping project leaders, project teams, and their organizations. The answers to the following three questions will help your organization foster a workable decision-making process:

1. Who? Prior to the beginning of any project, determining who has decision-making power is the first step. Of course, on most projects there will likely be several decision makers.
2. What? Different members of the team will probably have different decision-making responsibilities based upon their role. Identifying the scope of everyone's responsibility regarding the type of decisions they can and can't make avoids confusion and makes it possible to streamline the process. Nobody wants to "Mother, may I?" every move they make, nor should the project manager or stakeholder be expected to make every decision.
3. How? Identifying how decisions are made and how they are shared with project team members is almost as important as the decision itself.

Regardless of your work management methods or the project management tools you use, making project decisions is part of a project leader's job. What's more, it's been said that in-decisions becomes decision with time.

The Chinese philosopher Confucius suggested, "By three methods we may learn wisdom: First, by reflection, which is the noblest; Second: by imitation, which is the easiest; and Third, by experience which is the bitterest."

I don't think there's anyone who has to make decisions on a regular basis that wouldn't agree with Mr. Confucius. What are you doing to foster a good decision-making environment?

Research Participants Needed:

The @task product management team is currently looking for working Project Managers (both PMP certified and "accidental" project managers) who would be willing to participate in a 30-45 minute interview. Topics of discussion will cover general project management activities such as: project monitoring, communicating status, managing personal work, and managing ad hoc or lightweight initiatives. @task will use this information to create a new generation of project management tools to actually solve the core business problems faced by PMs. If you are interested in sharing your input, confidentially comment to the blog with your contact information (we won't publish the comment).