Decision Making.
What’s the sign of maturity ? I kept asking myself many-a-times. I eventually found out, A person’s Maturity is not single dimensional, but is combination of lot of attributes, that makes a person and grows a person. An important aspect of Growth personally and professionally, is “Decision Making”. This is major differentiating factor I have observed in folks new to Industry to a person who is Matured in a specific role. It’s this “Decision Making” that has enabled certain folks to grow longer in their career and made them better leaders. Any profession, example Mahendra Singh Dhoni, otherwise “Captain Cool”, is famous for his ability to take good decision during critical moments.
In this blog, I want to share my experience on how I evolved in my “Decision Making” process, and share my learnings which I was able to sponge off many Tech Leaders.
For purpose of this article, I am limiting the scope to Leadership Decision Making in Tech Industry, specifically for Tech Leaders and Grooming Project Managers.
Tools For Decision Making
Every situation, risk or an issue demands an Action. Actions are taken based on Decision. Like the butterfly effect, remember your actions on a decision can have an hurricane of impact. So be mindful of this.
Step 1 towards a Decision Making is to make sure, you have a framework in place for your decisions.
What do I mean by framework ? Framework is set of guidelines, concepts and structures which will enable you when you are in need. The most obvious of framework is “Data”. Build a Data platform. Every problem and its corresponding decision can be broken up into: RAID
Risk, Actions, Issues and Decision.
I strongly urge Tech Leaders and Project Managers to maintain their “RAID Log”. Every problem or a project has a set of “Risks”. Now we can take “Actions” to mitigate the risks. The Risk or the Action Taken can cause an “Issues”. Of course this leads to “Decisions”. This RAID log can help take consistent actions and if you see consistent Risks or Issues, you know, the decision taken has a concern. It is important to build Data for yourself, Your Team, Your Project and Organization. This way everyone know why we take certain decision the way we have taken it.
Framework should always have a Give.
What do I mean by this ? While you might be taking decision based on your data, never do “Positional Bargaining”.
Positional bargaining is a negotiation strategy that involves holding on to a fixed idea, or position, of what you want and arguing for it and it alone, regardless of any underlying interests.
What this mean is, in situations or issues, which demand actions, always remember, never do a Positional Bargaining. This is a term, where you are negotiating a “Decision” where you are firm, you want your way. This can do no good and ultimately result in where both parties take home nothing.!
I read this life changing book (Getting to Yes), which helps take better Decision and thereafter enabling better actions. For example, there is a “Change in Scope” or “A resource is getting reallocated to a different project”. When you get into a discussion with your leaders, trying to find a solution, do not use positional Bargaining, where its either zero or one. Take decision which can be a “win-win” for both parties. Example, see if a certain resource can finish the tasks being worked on actively and then move to different project and all the while in the background find a mitigation resource when that person moves on.
Data is polymorphic.!
When we speak of Data and Decision Making, there is problem here,
I have seen folks speaking through the data rather than letting the Data speak to them.
What do I mean by this ? Take a situation where you have an 1–1 upcoming with your engineer. You have a feeling, the engineer is not performing to his best capacity. Your framework demands you to go get the data, before you decide this person is underperforming. You would jump to Jira and query number of tasks performed by this person and number of fixes by this person, and for example might see it was meekly 2 in last 2 months. You had a pre-defined notion, you see data and you decide, “hey this person is under-performing.”
This is where we have a problem. The person is trying to speak via the data and not letting the data speak to the person.
How does it differ ? Or how do we do it different ?
Take a step back. The problem should not be prejudiced as, “This person is underperforming”, rather, take a larger view. Say to yourself, “Let me check the velocity of the team and How efficient are we being as team ?”
Now the data you fetch will look a lot different. You would end up pulling the data for entire team, check the number of tickets, complexity of tickets, rate of incoming vs rate of outgoing, disposition time. This helps us find if there speed-breakers” for the team, example a concerning process or an infra issue. When you take a wholistic angle of this problem, you would see the data is speaking to you differently. It might convey an entirely different notion. Now you would take entire different decision and actions based on this Decision.
Remember, “Let the Data speak to you, Do not speak via the Data”.
Never Be Single Dimensional
While data is very important to decision making, remember, we are Social beings. Do not forget that. While data can be a major driving factor, do not forget to speak to your colleagues, friends, mentors, family members. Make sure personal anecdotes, past experiences, peer feedback, should help you to decision. You can never have a conversation with Data, Data is single dimensional, never forget the Social part of Decision Making.
Last Thoughts.
I heard from this very senior Executive about Decision Making. This was what this person shared, Experiences build your leadership instinct and Good leaders always listen to their instinct. This executive suggested for decision making, it is 80% data and 20% Instinct for himself. I found this very useful suggestion. Seeing this person lead a huge organization, I believe this worked for this person and worked very well. The split is for you to decide. When do you make a decision, do you wait for 100% data or X% ? Time may not be your luxury every time you have to take a decision.
Be inclusive in your decision making. Like
“Rome was not built in one day”,
Rome was not built by one person. Try to be inclusive when it comes to Decision Making. And yes, too many cooks spoil the dish. So be inclusive, but you need not invite the entire floor of people for a decision, be specific on taking inputs from folks(Subject Matter Experts), who can provide you those objective feedback and data points.
Lastly, be flexible. If you see signs your decision is not working well, do not sink with the ship. Be ready to accept the bad decision, learn/document your mistake and be flexible to change course. Again this goes back to above image, Your Bad Decisions gives you Experiences, And it is these experiences that help you make Good Decisions and transform you to be a Better Leader.
