I use diverse tools and methods, that I have acquired mostly by practicing or learning by doing, during my Assessing, Consulting, Training, Facilitating, Coaching, Mentoring and Advising assignments using doHow® for Inspirational Persuasion.
I have been speaking live on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube, a randomly picked leadership or management tool or method from my toolbox for the week at 20:30 Indian Standard Time for 10-15 minutes. Last week the topic was the management tool “Swim Lane Diagram”. This week I will be speaking on a leadership tool “Decision Analysis” and today in my blog, I will briefly explain the Decision Analysis.
Introduction (Monday @ 20:30 IST on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube): Decision Making is one of the key skills of a leader, especially from the perspective of inspiring the people to execute the decision with commitment.
When it comes to important decisions involving alternate options, the Kepner and Tregoe Decision Analysis (KT-DA) is possibly the best and the most popular tool used in companies.
The first step is to identify all the factors, or needs and expectations from the decision, concerning the decision. The next step is to divide them into Must and Want factors. The third step is to give a weightage to each of the Want factors between 1 and 10, 10 being most important. Generally, these steps are carried out in moderated discussions with all the stakeholders, for establishing a common understanding.
Now the supporting aspects of the alternate options is described for each of the Must and the Want factors. Once this is done, for the Must factors, either a “GO” is selected, when the alternate option meets fulfils these factors, or a “NOGO” is selected, when the alternate option does not fulfil the factor. Instead of a “GO/NOGO”, a Score between 0-10 is given to each of the Want factors depending on how much the alternate option fulfils the respective criteria, 10 being the best.
Now the Weights and Scores are multiplied and added up for each of the alternate options to arrive at the total Weighted Score for each of the alternate option. A “GO” alternate option with the maximum score is the best decision choice, provided the difference between the maximum and the next highest score is significant. Otherwise, once needs to analyse the alternate options further and iterate till a significant difference is visible. If the difference is not significant, then choosing either of the two alternate options is OK.
Application (Tuesday @ 20:30 IST on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube): The application of KT-DA can be found during problem solving, for choosing the various solution alternatives and during stable progress for CAPEX decisions. This tool is especially very useful and effective in large organisations, since collective wisdom can be transferred as Must and Want factors along with their Weightages and offered to teams in the form of templates for empowering them.
Cons / Negatives (Wednesday @ 20:30 IST on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube): The weights and scores being subjective, unless the final approving authority is competent, decisions can be manipulated. Getting a team with diverse members, even though is challenging to organise, can mitigate the manipulation risk. Even though the filling up of the matrix with descriptions on how each of the alternate options fulfil the Must and the Want factors, I believe this ensures thorough understanding of the offers, so much essential for right decision making.
Pros / Positives (Thursday @ 20:30 IST on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube): In my experience working in different countries, irrespective of the location, the biggest advantage of KT-DA is listing out all the expectations of the stakeholders and securing their buy-in with commitment for executing the decisions. Apart from this, especially for CAPEX decisions when the desired performance is not achieved, I have always been able to discuss with the vendor on specific points, even though I was not involved in the decision making, since I could refer to the KT-DA for the rationale.
LIVE DIALOGUE WITH DINAKAR (Friday @ 20:30 IST on LinkedIn, Facebook, and YouTube): Dialogues and debates are excellent for developing clarity of thought and further learning. I invite you to participate in a live dialogue with me and share your experiences on Decision Analysis. I will basically function as a facilitator for a discussion. You may please use this link on Friday @ 20:30 IST to join: https://dinakarmurthy.com/live.
Looking forward to meeting you during my live sessions this week,
Happy reading!