Reader Question 4. How do you get Efficiency in Decision making?
Question: “In my organization… we have to make many varying decisions daily. I don’t see how you can make decisions more efficient.”
Answer: All work involves continuous decision making it is just that we are so unaware of the routine decisions that we make that we don’t recognize them as decisions. Even first time decisions can have a preset approach that can lead to more efficiency. When others are involved in making open broad decisions consider the following process:
1. Prepare for the meeting by visualizing possible alternatives then write down the key impact items for each alternative. Try to assess the size of each impact item and determine where more information is required.
2. In the meeting bring up each of the possible alternatives and call for other alternatives. Review the key impact items for each alternative and quickly eliminate nonviable alternatives. Try to narrow the alternatives to two or three and end the meeting by identifying all the key items where background data is required. The final decision will be based on the results of the background data. In the above approach you should allow time for first time decisions but you should never try to put a time limit on them because the quality of the decision outweighs the time spent in making the decision.
Routine decisions are entirely a different matter they can be efficiently made.
The following is an example of routine decision making. A roofing company that replaces asphalt shingles on homes provides estimates to customers. The estimates involve mostly routine decisions. When rare first time decisions are made they quickly become another routine decision. The key impact items in each decision are: driving distance; one story or two story; roof slope, low or high; number of gables; and type of shingles, simple or special. Estimates can be calculated using a simple matrix chart format allowing the estimate to be simply picked off the charts and totaled during a phone call with a customer. Note that all first time decisions are added to the matrix charts and become routine in future estimates. You can think of most first time decisions as simply a routine decision with some new added element.
Lower level decision making, those made by Work Improvement Teams focused on improving their work processes, are another example of first time decisions. Decisions should be pushed down in the organization as far as practical. For more information see Article 11. “Adaptation of Manufacturing Quality Improvement Techniques to Achieve Efficient Government”.
