9 Ways to Improve Your

Decision Making
By Mike Clayton   |   Oct 17, 2017

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Managers spend a lot of time making decisions, big and

small. And we cannot be right all the time. But what we do
want is to be able to make better decisions every time.

But how do we improve decision-making? We first need to

know what “good” looks like.

The test of a “good” decision cannot be the outcome. If it

were, we would never know if a decision is a good one until
too late. And that could easily lead to decision-making
paralysis.

Instead, consider a decision to be good if:

1. the right person took it

2. …with proper assessment of the best available evidence,

3. …following a sound process.

There’s plenty to get our teeth into there, so let’s look at
some specific advice to strengthen your decision-making
process, and make better decisions.

Learn from Experience

The best decision-makers treat decision-making as a science.
They record their decisions and the way they made them.
They then follow that up with notes about how events turned
out.

You may not choose to go that far for all your decisions. But,
as a manager, good governance will demand that you do
record all key project decisions. However, what you should do
is occasionally take time to reflect on recent decisions, so you
can learn from them. Give equal attentions to those that
turned out well, and those that did not.

When you need to make a new decision, always see what you
can learn from the past. What decisions have you and your
colleagues faced, which share one or more salient
characteristics with this one? We tend to believe that every
decision is unique, and so forget all of the value of
experience. Wisdom comes from learning, generalizing, and
then applying to the specific.

Related: Mastering the Decision-Making Process: A Practical

Guide

But do remember, that sometimes similar situations are

different in one significant way. What is that difference? And
also bear in mind that the reasons why a decision turned out
to be beneficial or problematic may not be related to your
decision-making process. What about implementation, other
people’s interference, or random events?

Entertain Doubt
There is always doubt: you can never be as certain as you
would like. So, it’s important to stop pretending you have
more certainty than you do have. Embrace the unknowns and
admit you could be wrong.

I am not advocating decision paralysis. Instead, you should

be testing each decision against multiple scenarios. Ask:
“What if my choice were 100% wrong?” Think about how your
decision might play out. Consider lots of things that could
frustrate it. Test it against alternative decisions, against these
scenarios and, if it still looks the best choice, go with it.

Give Yourself Options

Here’s a simple relationship:

P(Success) = F(Number of options)

What that means is that the probability of success is a

function of the number of options you consider.

In principle, the more options you have, the more likely you
are to succeed. But, there’s a limit. You don’t want too
many… beyond around three or four options, and you hit
psychologist Barry Schwartz’s Paradox of Choice. This means
you’ll find it too hard to make your decision.

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Paradoja de la decisición:

Les voy a hablar acerca de algo que está en uno de mis libros que espero resonará con
otras cosas que ustedes han escuchado, e intentaré hacer algunas conexiones yo mismo,
en caso de que ustedes las pierdan. Quiero empezar con lo que llamo el "dogma
oficial". ¿El dogma oficial de qué? El dogma oficial de todas las sociedades industriales
occidentales. Y el dogma oficial dice así: Si estamos interesados en maximizar el bienestar
de nuestros ciudadanos, la manera de hacerlo es maximizar la libertad individual. La razón
de esto es tanto que la libertad en sí misma es buena, como valiosa, loable y esencial a los
seres humanos. Y porque si la gente tiene libertad, entonces cada uno de nosotros puede
actuar por nuestra cuenta para hacer las cosas que maximizarán nuestro bienestar y nadie
tendrá que decidir en nuestro nombre. La forma de maximizar libertad es maximizando la
elección.

Entre más posibilidades tenga la gente, más libertad tendrá y entre más libertad tenga, más
bienestar tendrán.

Esta idea, pienso, está tan profundamente integrada en el abasto de agua que a nadie se le
ocurriría cuestionarlo. Y también está profundamente integrado en nuestras vidas. Les daré
algunos ejemplos de cómo el progreso moderno lo ha hecho posible para nosotros Este es
mi supermercado. No es tan grande. Quisiera decir unas palabras acerca de los aderezos
de ensalada. 

Hay 175 aderezos de ensalada en mi supermercado. Eso si no contamos los 10 diferentes

tipos de aceite de oliva extra virgen y los 12 vinagres balsámicos que pueden comprar. para
que hagan su propia gran variedad de aderezos, en el caso remoto de que ninguna de las
175 que ofrece la tienda les guste. Y así es como es en el supermercado. Y luego vayan a
la tienda de electrodomésticos para ver los sistemas estereofónicos, bocinas, reproductores
de CD, de cintas, sintonizador, amplificador. Y esto en una sola tienda de
electrodomésticos, tienen esta cantidad de sistemas estereofónicos. Podemos construir seis
y medio millones de sistemas de estéreo diferentes con los componentes que se ofrecen en
una sola tienda. 
Reconozcamos que hay mucho para elegir. En otros campos, el mundo de las
comunicaciones. Hubo una época, cuando era niño, cuando uno podía obtener cualquier
tipo de servicio telefónico que quisiera, siempre y cuando viniera de Ma Bell. Uno rentaba el
teléfono. No lo compraba. Una consecuencia de esto, por cierto, es que el teléfono nunca se
descomponía Esos tiempos ya se fueron. Ahora tenemos una casi ilimitada variedad de
aparatos telefónicos, especialmente en el mundo de los celulares. Estos son los celulares
del futuro.

Mi favorito es el de en medio, con reproductor MP3, rasuradora de pelos de la nariz,

encendedor para creme brulee. Y si por si acaso no lo han visto en su tienda todavía, les
puedo asegurar que pronto algún día lo tendrá. Y lo que esto hace es conducir a la gente a
entrar a las tiendas haciéndose esta pregunta:
 ¿Y saben cuál es ahora la respuesta a esta pregunta? La respuesta es "No." No es posible
comprar un celular que no haga demasiado. 

Así, en otros aspectos de la vida que son mucho más significativos que comprar cosas, la
misma explosión de posibilidades es cierta. Servicios de salud, ya no es más el caso en
Estados Unidos cuando uno iba al doctor y el doctor le decía a uno qué hacer. En su lugar,
uno va al doctor y el doctor dice, bueno, podríamos hacer A ó B. A tiene estos beneficios y
estos riesgos B tiene estos beneficios y estos riesgos ¿qué quiere hacer? Y uno dice: "Doc
¿qué debo hacer?" Y el doc dice: A tiene estos beneficios y estos riesgos y B tiene estos
beneficios y estos riesgos. ¿Qué quiere hacer? Y uno dice: "Si usted fuera yo, Doc, qué
haría?" Y el doc dice: "Pero yo no soy usted." Y el resultado es lo que llamamos "autonomía
del paciente." lo cual suena como algo bueno. Pero lo que en realidad ocurre es un traslado
de la carga y la responsabilidad de tomar decisiones de alguien que sabe algo, a saber el
doctor, a alguien que no sabe nada y que probablemente está enfermo y que no está en la
mejor forma para tomar decisiones, a saber el paciente. 

Existe una enorme mercadotecnia de los medicamentos recetados para personas como

ustedes y yo, que si lo piensan, no tiene sentido en absoluto, porque no podemos
comprarlos sin recetas. ¿Por qué nos los mercadean si no los podemos comprar? La
respuesta es que esperan que llamemos a nuestros doctores el día siguiente y pidamos que
nos cambie la receta. Algo tan drástico como nuestra identidad se ha vuelto ahora una
cuestión de elegir, como lo indica esta diapositiva
No heredamos una identidad, tenemos que inventarla. Y nos reinventarnos con la
frecuencia con la que queremos. Y esto significa que cada día cuando nos despertamos en
la mañana, tenemos que decidir que clase de persona queremos ser. Con respecto al
matrimonio y a la familia, hubo un tiempo que la suposición por omisión que casi todos
tenían es que te casabas tan pronto como podías, luego empezabas a tener hijos tan pronto
como podías. La única elección real era quien, no cuando y no lo que harías después. 

Hoy en día, todo está más a nuestra dispocicion. Doy clases con mucha fortuna a
estudiantes inteligentes, y les asigno 20% menos trabajo de lo que solía hacer. Y no es
porque sean menos listos, y tampoco porque sean menos diligentes, Es porque están
preocupados, preguntándose, ¿Debo casarme o no? ¿Debo casarme ahora? ¿O debo
casarme después? ¿Primero los hijos o la carrera? Todas estas son preguntas
avasalladoras. Y las tienen que contestar, aun cuando hagan o no todo el trabajo que les
asigno y no obtengan buenas calificaciones en sus cursos. En efecto tienen que hacerlo.
Estas son preguntas importantes a responder. Trabajo, somos benditos, como lo apuntaba
Carl, con la tecnología que nos permite trabajar cada minuto del día desde cualquier lugar
del planeta excepto el Hotel Randolph. 

Existe una esquina, por cierto pero no se los voy a contar, donde el WiFi funciona. Y no se
los voy a decir porque yo quiero usarlo. Lo que esto significa, esta increíble libertad de
eleccion que tenemos con respecto al trabajo, es que tenemos que tomar una decisión, una
y otra vez y otra vez acerca de si debemos o no trabajar. Podemos ir a ver a nuestros hijos
jugar futbol, y tener nuestro celular en una cadera, y nuestro Blackberry en la otra, y nuestra
laptop, supuestamente, en nuestro regazo. Incluso si los tuviéramos apagados, cada minuto
en que estemos viendo a nuestro hijo mutilar un partido de futbol, nos estaremos
preguntando, "¿Debo contestar el celular?" "¿Debo responder el correo? ¿Debo hacer el
borrador de la carta?" Incluso si la respuesta a la pregunta es "no", esto ciertamente hará la
experiencia del partido de futbol de tu hijo muy diferente de lo que hubiera sido. Así que en
cualquier lado donde miremos, cosas grandes y pequeñas, cosas materiales y cosas del
estilo de vida, la vida es una cuestión de elegir. Y el mundo al que estabamos
acostumbrados a vivir era así. 
Es decir, teníamos algunas elecciones, pero no todas era una cuestión de elegir, Pero el
mundo en el que vivimos ahora se ve así:

 ¿Y la pregunta es, son buenas o malas noticias? La respuesta es sí. 

Todos sabemos lo bueno de esto, así que voy a hablar de lo malo. Toda esto de elegir tiene
dos efectos, dos efectos negativos en la gente. Un efecto, paradójicamente, es que produce
parálisis más que liberación. Con tantas opciones a elegir, la gente encuentra simplemente
difícil hacer la elección. Les voy a dar un ejemplo drástico de esto, un estudio que se hizo de
inversiones para planes de retiro voluntario. Un colega mío tuvo acceso a los registros de
inversión de Vanguard, el gigante de fondos de inversión de cerca de un millón de
empleados en cerca de 2,000 diferentes lugares de trabajo. Lo que ella encontró es que por
cada 10 fondos de inversión que el patrón ofrecía, la tasa de participación bajaba dos por
ciento. Si se ofrecían 50 fondos, 10 por ciento menos de empleados participaban. que si
sólo se ofrecían cinco ¿por qué? Porque con 50 fondos a escoger, es tan difícil decidir cuál
fondo escoger. que simplemente lo pospones para mañana. Y entonces mañana y
mañana y mañana y mañana, y por supuesto mañana nunca llega. Entendamos que esto
no sólo significa que la gente tendrá que comer comida de perros cuando se retire porque
no tendrán dinero suficiente para ahorrar también significa que tomar una decisión es tan
difícil que dejan pasar una importante beneficio monetario de su empleador. Al no participar,
dejan pasar tanto como 5000 dólares al año de su empleador, quien felizmente se
beneficia. Así que la parálisis es una consecuencia de tener demasiadas elecciones. Y
pienso que esto hace que el mundo se vea así:
En verdad uno quiere tomar la decisión correcta si es por toda la eternidad ¿cierto? Uno no
quiere elegir el fondo erróneo, incluso el aderezo incorrecto. Entonces este es un efecto. El
segundo efecto es que aun cuando logremos rebasar la parálisis y elegir, acabamos menos
satisfechos con el resultado de la elección de lo que estaríamos si hubiésemos tenido
menor opciones para elegir. Y hay varias razones para esto. Una de ellas es que con tantos
tipos diferentes de aderezos para elegir, si compras uno y no es perfecto y, bueno ¿cuál
aderezo lo es? Es fácil imaginar que pudiste haber realizado una elección diferente que
hubiese sido mejor. Lo que ocurre es que esta alternativa imaginada te induce a lamentar la
decisión que hiciste, y este remordimiento le resta a la satisfacción que obtienes de la
decisión que hiciste, aun cuando la decisión haya sido buena. Entre más opciones existan,
es más fácil lamentarlo todo, hace que la opción que elegiste sea decepcionante. 

Segundo, lo que los economistas llaman costos de oportunidad. Dan Gilbert recalcó esto
esta mañana al hablar de como la manera que valoramos las cosas varia de acuerdo a lo
que las comparamos. Bien, cuando existen muchas alternativas a considerar, es fácil
imaginar los aspectos atractivos de las alternativas que rechazas, que te dejan menos
satisfecho con la alternativa que has escogido. Les pongo un ejemplo. Para aquellos de
ustedes que no sean neoyorquinos, una disculpa:
Aquí está lo que se supone que estás pensando. Tenemos una pareja en los
Hamptons. Una propiedad muy cara. Playa fabulosa, día hermoso. Lo tienen todo para
ellos. ¿Qué podría haber mejor? "Pues, maldita sea, " está pensando este tipo, "Es
agosto, todo mundo en el vecindario de Manhattan está fuera. Podría estacionarme justo en
frente de mi edificio." Pasa dos semanas atormentado por la idea de que se está perdiendo
la oportunidad, día tras día, de tener un buen lugar para estacionarse. Los costos de
oportunidad sustraen de la satisfacción que obtenemos de lo que elegimos, incluso cuando
lo que elegimos es estupendo. Y entre más opciones existan a considerar, más aspectos
atractivos de estas opciones se reflejarán en nosotros como costos de oportunidad. Otro
ejemplo:
Esta caricatura tiene varios puntos. Hace también observaciones acerca de vivir en el
momento, y probablemente sobre hacer las cosas despacio. Pero un punto que hace es
que en el momento en que elegimos una cosa, estás eligiendo no hacer otras cosas. Y esas
otras cosas tienen muchos aspectos atractivos, que harán que lo que estás haciendo sea
menos atractivo.  

Tercero: escala de expectativas. Me dí cuenta de esto cuando fui a reemplazar unos

jeans. Visto jeans casi todo el tiempo. Y hubo una época en que los jeans eran de un solo
tipo, y los comprabas, y te quedaban horrible, y eran increíblemente incómodos, y si los
vestías el tiempo suficiente y los lavabas las suficientes veces, empezaban a sentirse
bien. Así que fui a reemplazar mis jeans después de años y años de usar los viejos, y dije:
"Quiero unos jeans de esta talla." Y el vendedor de la tienda dice: "¿Los quiere ajustados,
justos, o sueltos? ¿Los quiere con bragueta de botones o cierre? ¿Deslavados a piedra o en
ácido? ¿Los quiere aflojados? Los quiere de corte recto, estrecho, bla, bla bla..." y así se
siguió. Se me cayó la quijada y cuando me recuperé, le dije, "Quiero del tipo que solía ser el
único tipo que había." 

El vendedor no tenía idea de lo que era, así que me pase una hora probando todos estos
pantalones, y salí de la tienda -la verdad sea dicha- con el jean que mejor me ha
quedado. Mejoré. Toda esta elección me permitió mejorar. Pero me sentí peor. ¿Por qué?
Escribí todo un libro para intentar explicármelo a mí mismo. La razón por la que me sentí
peor es que, con todas estas opciones disponibles, mis expectativas acerca de un par de
jeans se fueron para arriba. Yo tenía expectativas bajas. No tenía expectativas particulares
cuando sólo había un tipo. Ahora que vienen en 100 diferentes, maldita sea, uno de ellos ha
de ser perfecto. Y lo que obtuve fue bueno, pero no fue perfecto. Así que comparé lo que
obtuve con lo que esperaba, y lo que obtuve fue decepcionante en comparación a lo que
esperaba. Agregar opciones a la vida de la gente inevitablemente incrementa las
expectativas que las personas tienen sobre lo bueno que esas opciones tienen:
Y lo que eso va a producir es menos satisfacción con los resultados, aun cuando los
resultados sean buenos. Nadie en el mundo del marketing sabe esto Porque si lo supieran,
ustedes no sabrían nada acerca de esto. La verdad es más parecida a esto:

La razón de que todo era mejor antes cuando todo era peor es que cuando todo era
peor, era en efecto posible que gente tuviera experiencias que fuesen sorpresas
placenteras. En la actualidad, en el mundo en que vivimos, nosotros los ciudadanos
industrializados, afluentes, con perfección de la expectativa, lo mejor que puedes aspirar es
que las cosas sean tan buenas como esperabas que lo fueran. Nunca recibirás una
sorpresa placentera porque tus expectativas, mis expectativas, se fueran por arriba del
techo. El secreto de la felicidad -- que es lo que todos buscamos -- el secreto de la felicidad
es tener bajas expectativas:
voy ahablar

Quiero decirles -- un corto aporte autobiográfico -- que estoy casado con una mujer que es
realmente bastante maravillosa. No me pudo haber ido mejor. No me acomode. Aunque
acomodarse no siempre es algo malo. Finalmente, una consecuencia de comprar un mal
par de pantalones de mezclilla cuando sólo existe un tipo a comprar es que cuando estás
insatisfecho y te preguntas por qué, quién es el responsable, la respuesta es clara. El
mundo es responsable ¿qué puedes hacer? Cuando existen cientos estilos diferentes de
jeans disponibles, y compras uno que te decepciona, y te preguntas por qué, quién es el
responsable? Es de la igualmente claro que la respuesta a la pregunta eres tú. Pudiste
haberlo hecho mejor. Con un centenar de tipos diferentes de jeasn en despliegue, no hay
excusa al fracaso. Entonces cuando la gente toma decisiones, incluso cuando los
resultados de las decisiones sean buenos, se sienten decepcionados por ellos, se culpan
así mismos. 

La depresión clínica ha explotado en el mundo industrial en la última generación. Yo creo

que un contribuyente significativo, no el único, pero significativo a esta explosión de la
depresión al igual que del suicidio, es que la gente tiene experiencias que son
decepcionantes porque sus estándares son muy altos. Y cuando tienen que explicarse
estas experiencias a sí mismos, piensan que son culpables. Entonces el resultado neto es
que en general lo estamos haciendo mejor, objetivamente, pero nos sentimos peor.

Así que déjenme que les recuerde. Este es el dogma oficial, el que todos tomamos como
verdadero, y que sea del todo falso. No es verdadero.
 No cabe duda que algo de eleccion es mejor que nada, pero tener más elecciones no es
mejor que sólo tener algunas cuantas Existe un monto mágico. No sé cuál es; pero me
siento lo suficiente confiado para afirmar que hace mucho que rebasamos el punto donde
esas opciones mejoraban nuestro bienestar

Ahora, como una cuestión de políticas -- ya casi termino -- como una cuestión de políticas,
la cosa a pensar es esta. Lo que permite toda estas elecciones en las sociedades
industriales es la afluencia material. Hay muchos lugares en el mundo, y hemos escuchado
acerca de varios de ellos, donde su problema no es que tengan demasiadas opciones. Su
problema es que tienen demasiado pocas. Así que esto de lo que hablo es un problema
peculiar de sociedades occidentales, afluentes, modernas. Y lo que es frustrante y
exasperante es esto: Steve Levitt nos habló ayer acerca de cómo no sirven estos asientos
para niños caros y difíciles de instalar. Es un desperdicio de dinero. Lo que les estoy
diciendo es que estas opciones complicadas y caras, no es simplemente que no sirvan, de
hecho lastiman. Nos hacen sentir peor. 

Si algo de lo que permite que la gente en nuestras sociedades tenga tantas opciones se
trasladara a sociedades en que la gente tiene muy pocas opciones, no sólo se mejoraría la
vida de esas personas, sino también la nuestra mejoraría. Esto es lo que los economistas
llaman óptimo de Pareto. La redistribución del ingreso nos beneficia a todos -- no sólo a la
gente pobre -- debido a cómo todo este exceso de opciones nos infestan
Para concluir. Se supone que leyeron esta caricatura, y, siendo una persona sofisticada,
digamos, "¡Oh!¿qué sabe este pez? Bueno nada es posible en esta pecera." Imaginación
pobre, visión miope del mundo, y esa es la forma en que lo leí la primera vez. Entre más lo
pienso, sin embargo, más me acerco a la opinión de que este pez sabe algo. Porque la
verdad de las cosas es que si rompes esta pecera para que todo sea posible, no tienes
libertad; tienes parálisis. Si rompes esta pecera para que todo sea posible, reduces tu
satisfacción. Incrementas la parálisis y disminuyes la satisfacción. Todos necesitamos una
pecera. Esta ciertamente es muy limitada quizás incluso para el pez, ciertamente para
nosotros. Pero la ausencia de alguna pecera metafórica es una receta para la miseria, y, yo
sospecho, para el desastre. Muchas gracias 

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0-17:0-9

One option is no choice at all, two is a dilemma: yes or no?

Three is real choice. With 10 choices, you’ll be more worried
about excluding good options than about choosing good ones.

Argue it Out
To make better decisions, encourage rigorous debate and
argument. Set different team members the task of building a
case for each option. Set others the task of finding flaws in
the arguments.

Track the argument, so you fully understand each choice and

see it from different perspectives. Spot whether the argument
is about the data, how it is interpreted, or about people, or
vision, or values.  Each of these has a different resolution… or
none.

If it’s really important, appoint a “red team” to find

arguments against you preferred view, to test it as hard as
they can.

Understand the Context to Your Decision

Do your homework, and explore all of the background
information you can get. The more you go back to the base
information, the more reliable your judgment will be.

If, instead, you rely on bullet point summaries, you run the
risk of tacitly accepting a bias. Which data did the person who
built the presentation choose? And what did they leave out?
How did they interpret that data, to summarize it into short
bullets? And what alternative analysis is available?

Look for different sources of information and different modes

of gathering it.

 Talk to people

 Read reports

 Make visits
  Observe
Try Carrying out Experiments
There is no better way to gather strong evidence to help with
a decision, than a well-designed experiment. One experiment
is worth a thousand theories and projections. Like, try solving
the problem quickly, and see what happens.

How to Solve A Problem in 5

Minutes
By Elizabeth Harrin   |   Dec 30, 2015

“If I had an hour to solve a problem I’d spend 55

minutes thinking about the problem and 5 minutes
thinking about solutions.” — Albert Einstein

If it’s good enough for Einstein…

Perhaps we should all start solving problems more quickly.

Think about it: no more long, drawn-out meetings or projects
blocked because someone further up the chain hasn’t got
round to making a decision just yet.

Slow decision-making is the enemy of innovation. You want

your new product to be fast to market. That means solving
problems along the way, but solving them quickly so your
product life cycle isn’t held up.
Quickly, But Not Too Quickly
However, innovation also relies on the deep, creative thinking
that you can’t do in a few minutes. It involves getting a full
understanding of the problem, talking to customers, testing
out different options and working as a team to refine a
creative idea through to a marketable end point. There’s a
management overhead to that too: we should support our
team’s creativity (find out why here). It all takes time.
When you’re too focused on firing off an email to unblock a
problem in the project team, you’re not giving the issue the
depth of understanding it most likely needs. This is a
particular problem in companies where managers and project
teams are valued for their decisive action and quick results,
rather than their contemplation and thought leadership when
faced with sticky problems.

So Can You Solve Problems Fast?

As anyone who has ever sat in a brainstorming
session knows, when there are no parameters, the boundaries
for creative thinking are never-ending. That might be
appropriate for some business problems.

On the other hand, there are many times on a project where

you don’t have the luxury of a lot of time to deeply dive into
all the criteria – and, more importantly, there is no business
risk of doing that.

You can solve problems quickly and to do so you have to

provide a framework.

First, identify what is significant. Pinpoint the big things about

this problem. You could call this the brainstorming step, but
don’t turn it into a two-hour workshop with lots of sticky
notes. You have already established that this problem is
something that you can solve quickly with no business risk
and want to solve quickly.

Limit your brainstorming time. Give people three sticky notes

instead of a pad. Ignore the advice that says “anything goes”
and facilitate the discussion around practical points of
significance, not blue sky solutions. You’re looking for a
picture frame around your problem, not the whole gallery.

Second, identify what you don’t know and need to know.

Involve your team in this. Look for your blind spots; the
pieces of information that would help shape a better decision,
if only you knew them. It doesn’t take long to work out which
pieces of the puzzle are missing with the right people in the
room.

Third, gather your facts. Now you know what data is crucial
for making the right decision, send out your team members
to track it down. Get all the facts together so you can see the
complete picture. This is an important part of the puzzle
because it requires you to assimilate potentially large data
sets, look for patterns and identify trends.

Finally, prioritize what is important. From everything you

have on the table, work out what is most important. This
could be customer satisfaction, quality, speed, brand
reputation or anything else that is top of the tree when it
comes to making your final decision. This information, in
conjunction with the relevant data, will help you identify the
best solution.

Now For The Crucial 5 Minutes

When you’ve spent 55 minutes on this activity, you should be
far better placed to identify the solution in 5 minutes.
 In fact, you might already know it. The thinking time and
research that you’ve done with your team to this point will
have highlighted some potential scenarios and solutions.
You’ve been creative within your structured decision-making
framework and you’ve gathered all the evidence you need to
come to the right conclusions.

I bet if you asked someone in your team to make the decision

right now they could, without any further input. And they’d
probably have come to the same conclusion as you.

Use your 5 minutes like Einstein: reflect on everything you

know about the problem and let your brain bring the right
solution forward. You might not even need the whole 5
minutes.

Make More Time For Thinking

This approach to solving problems quickly only works because
of the time you’ve invested upfront in understanding the
issue. Within an hour you can take an issue from a disaster
for the project to something that is already resolved. To do
so, you need to have built in that hour, with the golden 5
minutes at the end. Managers and team leaders who are
struggling to get everything done may feel as if they can’t
afford the luxury of that thinking time.

If that sounds like you, one of two things will happen:

1. You make a snap decision without understanding the

context and facts and risk getting it wrong.
2. You put off making the decision until “you have more
time” and hold everyone else up with your inaction.

The best way to make more time for thinking is to get

organized and stay organized. Arm yourself with the project
management tools, technology and checklists to streamline
your processes (Jennifer Bridges, PMP, shares a
good checklist for project initiation in this video to get you
started). The more you are comfortable delegating and
empowering your team, the more you’ll find they don’t
constantly come to you with questions, giving you more time
for the value-added work on the project.

Build thinking time into your day and your personal work
habits, even if it’s just an early cup of coffee before your day
really starts to collect your thoughts and run over the big
challenges facing your team right now. In the longer term,
you’ll benefit from being able to make those decisions faster.

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An experiment is really a way of testing your decision with

well-contained consequences. In the project world, we have
pilots and prototypes.

They have another advantage for us. Stakeholders love them.

They engage people and help us gather feedback and build
support. And consider the pros and cons:

 The best case: the pilot is a huge success. You are

confident about your decision and your stakeholders have
a new enthusiasm.
 The worst case: the pilot is a huge failure. You are now
confident in needing a new decision. You prevented a full-
scale failure, and you can thank your stakeholders for
helping you avert disaster. It’s time for a new pilot.

So, this is a win-win approach, and one that is not common

enough in the projects I’ve seen and heard about.

Trash Your Theory

It is easy to find evidence to support your favored course of
action. Once you choose it, people will flock to back a winner.
And confirmation bias will ensure you find more and more
reasons why you are right.

The scientific way is to look for the one data point that will
trash your theory. If that data point is repeatable, you will
find yourself on the edge of a deeper understanding and,
maybe, a step further away from a potential catastrophe.

So, instead of trying to prove your potential decision is right,

try to prove it wrong. Look for reasons to doubt it. If you
can’t find any–especially if you tried hard–then you can have
confidence it’s a good decision.

Assume Your Decision is a Failure

You can go one further, and I need to credit psychologist
Gary A. Klein with this idea. He calls it ”pre-mortem.”

Pretend you made the decision already. Now imagine it has

gone horribly wrong. Ask yourself: “What would have caused
this failure?”
There are many reasons a project can fail, examine the
answers you get and see how they can help you improve that
decision…or find a better one.

5 Notorious Failed Projects

& What We Can Learn from
Them
By William Malsam   |   Oct 23, 2018

Good tracking and reporting can prevent failure. Try

ProjectManager.com and get award-winning PM tracking and
reporting tools that can spot problems and present solutions.
Get a Free 30-Day Trial of Our PM Software

Failure is an unavoidable part of any project process:

it’s the degree of failure that makes the difference. If a
task fails, there are ways to reallocate resources and get back
on track. But a systemic collapse will derail the whole project.

What good can come from failure? A lot, actually. Sometimes

a project reaches too far beyond its means and fails, which is
unfortunate, but can also serve as a teaching moment. If
project managers don’t learn from their mistakes, then
they’re not growing professionally and will revisit the same
problem in future projects.
Project managers can learn as much, if not more, from failed
projects as they can from successful ones. A post mortem
should be part of any project plan, and especially so when a
project crashes and burns. There are valuable lessons in
those ashes.

Let’s look at five notorious failed projects, not to gloat, but to

see what they can tell us about project management.

Betamax
The word Betamax has become almost synonymous with
failure. But when it was first released, Betamax was supposed
to become the leader in the cassette recording industry.
Developed by Sony, Betamax was introduced in the mid-
1970s but was unable to get traction in the market, where
JVC’s VHS technology was king.
Surprisingly, Sony continued to produce Betamax all the way
into 2016. Long before it discontinued the technology,
Betamax was already irrelevant.

The Lesson

Betamax was an innovative product, and it even got to

market before VHS. But soon the market had options that
were cheaper and better than Betamax, making it a failed
project. Sony’s mistake was thinking that the project was
complete once the product went to market. Project managers
need to always follow up on their work, analyze the data and
make an evaluation about what needs to be done to keep the
project relevant.

New Coke
Coca-Cola is one of the most iconic brands in the world. It
would take a lot to tarnish that reputation. But that’s just
what happened when New Coke was introduced in 1985.
People didn’t know why the Coke they loved and drank
regularly was being replaced.

The company knew why. They were looking to improve

quality and make a splash in the marketplace. The fact is,
New Coke sunk like a stone. It wasn’t like New Coke was just
released on an unknowing public, though it might seem that
way. In fact, the new recipe was tested on 200,000 people,
who preferred it to the older version.

But after spending $4 million in development and losing

another $30 million in backstocked product, the taste for New
Coke evaporated. Consumers can be very loyal to a product,
and once they get into a habit, it can be very difficult to break
them of it in favor of something different.

The Lesson

It’s not that Coca-Cola neglected market research to see if

there was a need for developing a new product, but they were
blind to their own customers’ motivations. New Coke was a
failed project because the researchers needed to do more
than a mere taste test. They needed to understand how
people would react when the familiar Coke they loved would
be discontinued and replaced by a shiny new upstart. Market
research must be handled like a science and an art.

Related: How to Know When to Kill a Project and Cut Losses

Stretch Project
The Stretch project was initiated in 1956 by a group of
computer scientists at IBM who wanted to build the world’s
fastest supercomputer. The result of this five-year project
was the IBM 7030, also known as Stretch. It was the
company’s first transistorized supercomputer.

Though Stretch could handle a half-million instructions per

second and was the fastest computer in the world up to 1964,
the project was deemed a failure. Why? The project’s goal
was to create a computer 100 times faster than what it was
built to replace. Stretch was only about 30-40 times faster.
The planned cost was $13.5 million, but the price dropped to
$7.8 million; so the computer was at least completed below
cost. Only nine supercomputers were built.

The Lesson

While the project was a failure in that it never achieved the

goal it set, there was much IBM could salvage from the
project. Stretch introduced pipelining, memory protection,
memory interleaving and other technologies that helped with
the development of future computers.

Creative work is rooted in failure specifically because of the

serendipitous discovery that occurs. This was a creative
project, which might not have met its paper objective, but
created a slew of useful technologies. So, aim for your goal,
and who knows what good things you’ll discover along the
way.

Challenger Space Shuttle

The worst failure is one that results in the loss of life. When
you’re dealing with highly complex and dangerous projects
like NASA, there’s always tremendous risk that needs to be
tracked. On January 28, 1986, that risk became a horrible
reality as space shuttle Challenger exploded 73 seconds after
launch.

The cause was a leak in one of the two solid rocket boosters
that set off the main liquid fuel tank. The NASA investigation
that followed said the failure was due to a faulty designed O-
ring seal and the cold weather at launch, which allowed for
the leak.

But it was not only a technical error that NASA discovered,

but human error. NASA officials went ahead with the launch
even though engineers were concerned about the safety of
the project. The engineers noted the risk of the O-ring, but
their communications never traveled up to managers who
could have delayed the launch to ensure the safety of the
mission and its astronauts.

The Lesson

Managers are only as well-informed as their team. If they’re

not opening lines of communication to access the data on the
frontlines of a project, mistakes will be made, and in this
case, fatal ones.

Computerized DMV
Okay, no one loves the DMV. If they were a brand, their
reputation would be more than tarnished, it would be buried.
But everyone who drives a vehicle is going to have some
interaction with this government agency. Unfortunately, they
didn’t help their case in the 1990s when the states of
California and Washington attempted to computerize their
Departments of Motor Vehicles.

In California, the project began in 1987 as a five-year, $27

million plan to track its 31 million drivers’ licenses and 38
million vehicle registrations. Problems started at the
beginning when the state solicited only one bid for the
contract, Tandem Computers, locking the state into buying
their hardware.

Then, to make things worse, tests showed that the new

computers were even slower than the ones they were to
replace. But the state moved forward with the project until
1994, when it had to admit failure and end the project.
The San Francisco Chronicle reported that the project cost the
state $49 million, and a state audit found that the DMV
violated contracting laws and regulations.

The Lesson

The problem here is a project that isn’t following regulations.

All projects must go through a process of due diligence, and
legal and regulatory constraints must be part of that process.
If the state had done that and the contract bidding
process invited more than one firm to the table, then a costly
mess could have been avoided, and our wait at the DMV
might actually have become shorter.

How ProjectManager.com Prevents Failed

Projects
Although there’s a lot to admire about these failed projects,
no one really wants to be a
failure. ProjectManager.com keeps your projects from failing
with a suite of project management tools that shepherd your
project from initiation to a successful close. Plan, schedule
and track work, while managing teams, with our online
software.
Plan Every Last Detail

Successful projects begin with a strong plan. But it can be

hard to keep all those tasks and due dates working together
on a realistic schedule. What if some tasks are dependent? It
gets complicated. But ProjectManager.com has an online
Gantt chart that plots your tasks across a project timeline,
linking dependencies and breaking projects into digestible
milestones.

Make plans and schedule work with our dynamic Gantt charts.

Track Progress as it Happens

Once the work is being executed it can quickly go south if left

unwatched. Projects can move away from the plan and
suddenly costs and schedules are messed up.
ProjectManager.com keeps you on track with high-level
monitoring via its real-time dashboard and more detailed data
with one-click reporting. Now when projects start to veer
offtrack, you can get them back on course quickly.
Keep projects on track with real-time dashboards and in-depth reporting.

Effective Workflows

Keeping teams focused on the task at hand and managing

their workflow, so no one is tasked with more than they can
handle, is how to keep projects from failing, too. Workflow
should be transparent, so ProjectManager.com has a kanban
board that keeps teams working on what they have the
capacity to work on, with the right amount of resources. A
color-coded workflow page makes it easy to see at a glance
who has too much work. Plus, it connects to all the other
views and reporting features in the software.
Manage teams, tasks and workflows with online kanban boards.v

---------------------------------------------------------------------

At the very least, if you do decide to stick with that decision,

you will have the start of a risk management plan that will
help you minimize your implementation risks.

Bring in Outsiders
Bring outsiders into your decision-making. Lots of research
show they can improve decisions, through three effects:

 Being different, they think differently. They know less,

and therefore ask the simple questions you have ignored.
As long as you take the time to answer those questions,
you can learn from them.
 Difference also creates a distinct point of view and new
insights. They can apply their own experiences and maybe
offer creative alternatives: either new ways of testing the
decision, or new choices.

 They are objective, and therefore will care more about

the decision than about egos and relationships. Group
think is one of the greatest risks to good decision-making.
If people in the group are too concerned about causing
conflict, they can subconsciously pace harmony above a
rigorous discussion. Outsiders are less prone to this.
Listening is Better for Decision-making
than Talking
If your team is discussing a decision, avoid contributing to the
discussion. Let others do that and focus on listening hard to
what they are saying. As soon as a decision-maker lets your
opinion out, you will influence everything that follows, and
therefore compromise your chance to hear all the truths.

Instead, turn off your filters of right and wrong and soak up
the facts and insights. Give no clue about which way you are
leaning. Challenge everything you hear, to force a robust
assessment of each component and fact.

Better still, prevent the experts from stating their opinions at

the start. A better approach is to have the information
presented in a neutral way, and ask the non-experts to react
to what they have heard. What questions do they have? What
are their observations? What seems most interesting? The
longer you wait before inviting opinions about the ‘right’
answer, the better-formed those opinions will be.
The reason for this is simple. People don’t like to be seen to
be changing their minds. The longer you wait before stating
opinions, the more chance you must modify them without the
social discomfort of having others see you doing it.

Mastering the Decision-

Making Process: A Practical
Guide
By Stephanie Ray   |   Nov 6, 2018

Get real-time data for better decision-making. Try

ProjectManager.com and get award-winning reporting tools that can
help you overcome any obstacle.
Get a Free 30-Day Trial of Our PM Software

Our mastery of the decision-making process plays a big

part in the outcome of our lives, as life could be easily
defined as a series of decisions.

Each step on life’s journey is taken after considering where to

put your foot. It’s true that some just march forward without
much thought, but even that is a decision.

While serendipitous discovery often follows those that accept

a more organic, nonlinear path, that creative approach is the
luxury of those with time to spare. Professionals rarely have
such a privilege. Theirs is the way of constraints and
accountability. Yet, even a more rigid structure of decision-
making can lead to inspired ends. It’s just a matter of
working within tighter boundaries.

So, what can you do if your options are narrowed by bottom-

lines, costs and deadlines? You can learn a decision-making
process that allows you to quickly assess the best choice and
make it based on data that supports the objectives and goals
you’ve been tasked to achieve.

7 Steps for an Effective Decision-Making

Process
Having a plan is the first step, but then there are seven after
that, so consider this the set up. Without a plan or a process
in place, you’ll never be able to develop a method of decision-
making that holds true. You plan your projects, so why
shouldn’t you plan your decision-making process?
1. Identify the Decision

You can’t make a decision until you decide that there’s a

decision to be made. It sounds obvious, but so often teams
will suffer indecision or, worse, ignorance of what the problem
requiring their decisive attention is. This can cause a problem
to fester, increasing its damage and influence on your
organization.

So, once you realize you have to make a decision, then you’re
already at step one. At this point in the decision-making
process, it’s critical to define the issue and the decision that
must be made. Make sure that you’re being as specific as
possible, because if you’re too broad in your definition, then
your decision is going to swing wide and likely miss its mark.

2. Collect Information

Now that you’ve got a decision to make, what’s the relevant

data you need in order to make a well-informed decision?
That includes establishing where to gather the best
information. Seek out where you can get accurate data on the
problem and, therefore, set you on the right course to making
the correct decision.

Look at the decision from all angles. That means, both

internally and externally. So, go through a process of self-
assessment, and get input from your team and those who are
interfacing with the issue that requires a decision. Also, seek
guidance from outside sources, whether that be online, in the
library or from other people who have experience and skill
solving similar problems. Reporting tools can also be a huge
help during this step.

3. Develop Options

As you research, you’ll likely have many avenues in which to

address the problem. That’s good. You want to have as many
alternatives as possible. Think of this as a fact-gathering
mission. It’s not part of this step to decide. That will come
later in the decision-making process. For now, list all the
decisions that meet the criteria of the research you’ve done.
Feel free to get creative when listing all of your possible
options because you never know where the best decision will
reveal itself. It may even come in the form of a combination
of options.

4. Judge the Evidence

The jury is still out, but the courtroom drama has passed.
Attorneys for all sides have presented their arguments, and
now it’s time for you to weigh the various decisions and run
them against your own metrics to see how they size up as the
single, best decision to make.

This is not solely a cerebral process. In fact, it’s easy to get

stuck in this step for too long if you continue to analyze data
and evaluate options. In order to escape this trap of analysis
paralysis, you must also trust your instincts.

Managers have experience and a history from which to turn to

for guidance. What does your gut say? If there are several
options that are so close that it’s hard to see the difference,
think about what acting on that decision would look like for
you, your team, the project and the organization. Run each
alternative through your head. See how they play out. Then
list them in order of priority to get a sense of which one you
favor. The one scenario that comes the closest to achieving
the goal you have is likely going to show itself, as you
carefully work through this process.

5. Make a Choice

Okay, you’ve made it! It’s time for the decision. It’s not yet
time for action though, as in enacting the decision, but before
you can do that you have to make a choice. This is often the
most difficult part. Prior to this you had a process to play
with, but there was nothing at stake—now there is.

You could make this step more of a continuation of the

previous step, if you need more time to process the
alternatives to see which one rises to the top of your list.
That’s fine. There’s nothing wrong with making sure you’ve
done the due diligence, as long as you’re getting closer to
making that decision.

6. Time for Action

No more procrastination. You could run through all the

alternatives in your head until it’s time for you to retire, and
then spend the rest of your life of leisure contemplating the
best possible route. You could do that, but that’s not what
you were hired to do. As a professional, you must act. Now is
that time. You’ve done the work, and you have the data. The
historical context and the compass of your gut are pointing
towards one decision. Implement it.
Whatever you do, don’t implement your decision blindly.
Watch what happens at the onset carefully, as you’ll want to
collect data and results to review later.

7. Review

All decisions are teaching moments, if you take the time to

see how the decision worked out (or not) and chart the
consequences of your action. Look at the results of your
decision. Did the decision go as you proposed it would?
Evaluate whether or not you made the right choices
throughout the previous decision-making steps. If your
decision proved ineffectual, then maybe you didn’t clearly
define the problem in step one.

Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world. This, too, is a
process. Use what you’ve learned from this decision-making
process and, if the decision wasn’t the right one, explore why
it didn’t serve the goal you had set for it and how you could
approach the process differently. The process isn’t perfect—
remember, it’s only as good as what you put into it.