Formulating the Decisions

In the previous article in the Decision making theme, we observed how all decisions, regardless of their content or context, have the same underlying structure. This is comforting and important. It means that there is a certain element of repeatability, a promise of process and technique which can be re-used to help deal with each new decision. This introduces familiarity and confidence drawn from experience and which feeds into future experience

It is not unlike driving a new car for the first time. The car feels new, is new and provides some challenges in terms of locating features you know are to be there. However, you certainly bring to bear your experience drawn from having driven other cars. It is not a totally new experience. This is our aim with decision making - to use our experience to take care of process, liberating us to focus creatively on those parts that are new and challenging.

The Objective
The place to begin is at the beginning. What is the issue? What is the objective? What do we need to solve? What will success look like?

Thinking about objectives is often helped by considering the SMARTA set of criteria, discussed in the Project Planning theme article called 'Writing Project Objectives' This is a short checklist that simply ensures that we are thinking in a realistic practical way rather than dreaming vaguely about some distant desirable.

It will turn out that single objectives are rare in decisions of any complexity. In fact this is precisely what makes decisions complex - the existence of multiple objectives which need to be weighed. We shall refer to this in a later article when we tackle the job of identifying criteria.

No Solutions - Yet!
It is important not to be distracted yet by solutions? We cannot possibly do justice to solution searching if we have not yet defined our problem.

This is a common flaw found among many decision makers. They consider solutions prematurely and often miss out on identifying an excellent candidate because the problem has not yet been defined.

Early thinking about solutions also introduces bias. We begin to favour one alternative before we have seen all the evidence. It is sometimes hard to let this bias go, even when a later more rational analysis would reveal that the alternative was not suitable after all.

This can also lead to lazy falling into old solutions simply because they have been used before, almost through habit. We shall banish any thought of solutions until we have provided some structure and definition to the problem.

Intuition is only a partial contributor to the decision
There is something else we should banish while we are at it, although this is a little more difficult. We don't want to apply our intuition to the decision as a whole. Intuition is not some mysterious spiritually gained insight. It is often knowledge gained and held unconsciously through experience and as such is a valuable human trait. However, it works best at the more detailed level rather than for the entire decision itself.

For example, suppose you are faced with the decision to relocate offices or renovate the present site. This is too high a level at which to apply intuition. Rather, it should provide enlightening insights such as:

You may not even know why you know these things; you might just have experienced it. Rather than determine an entire decision exclusively, intuition about lower level details can provide valuable insights which influence it, along with many other factors.

Incorporating these factors will demand our attention in future decision articles.