Hello, I'm Ray Sheen.
From time to time, teams will face problems and
during the problem solving process, the team must make decisions.
There are some best practices that can aid a team in the decision making process.
I wanna start this discussion by reviewing the types of decisions that
should be made.
And I'm talking about problem solving decisions affecting team performance,
not what type of pizza we should order for lunch, or the name of the team mascot.
When making a decision, the team and team leader should consider the stability and
reliability of the information they have to set expectations for
what type of decision is appropriate.
What I mean by reliability of the information is whether the team
is dealing with facts or opinions.
It's not to say that opinions are not relevant but
just that facts are less volatile or subject to different interpretations.
And information stability is whether the information, be it fact or
opinion, is fixed or it's still changing in fluid.
When a team is working with fixed facts, make a decision.
There's no reason to delay.
Make the decision and move on and
you don't need to continue to revisit this decision as it is based upon fixed facts.
When the information is opinion based, but the team member's opinions are stable and
are not still changing, then make a preliminary decision on a direction for
the team and move forward.
But in this case you will need to revisit the decision at one point
once facts starts to become available.
This is just to confirm that the opinions were correct.
Sometimes, the team has some limited facts available but
the situation is still fluid and facts are still coming in.
The new facts can change the perception of the problem and the potential solutions.
The best decision to make at this time is to decide on boundaries for
viable solutions.
Based upon the facts that the team has, they can rule out options A, C, and
F, but options B, D, E, and G are still potentially viable.
With this more focused set of options,
now focus the information collection to get a stable set of facts.
Finally, sometimes, there are no facts available and
the team members are not sure what to think - their opinions are also fluid.
In this case, the best decision is just to move forward down any path
in order to start getting some facts and solidifying opinions.
The path will probably be wrong and the decision will need to be updated, but moving
forward to learn more about the problem is far better than deciding to do nothing and
get overrun by the problem.
I will use this matrix with the team when I know that we are not
in the region of fixed facts.
Just to help them set their expectations about the decision, they can understand
that while it might not be a final decision that is being made, the type of
decision will help the team move forward to a final solution to the problem.
Understanding the type of decision is great but
we still need a process to make a decision.
This grid illustrates the typical amount of time and the level of team involvement
associated with the different team decision making approaches.
Generally speaking, the more involvement the team has in the process,
the more buy in and support they have for the decision.
The fastest approach is for
the team leader to make the decision without team input.
While fast, it also has the least amount of team buy in.
Team members rightly feel ignored and irrelevant in the decision.
The next fastest approach is for the team leader to gather input
from several team members usually through individual conversations.
The team leader calls on team members that they trust to who they
believe have relevant information for the decision.
After getting that input, the leader decides.
This approach often gains the support of those who provided input and
if the decision primarily effects them, this can work well.
Continuing along the time scale, the next approach is for the leader to call
the entire team together and ask for everyone's input on the decision.
In the team meeting, team members can provide opposing perspectives to
other people's opinions and a productive debate can occur.
However at some point, the team leader calls a halt to the debate and
then the leader decides, after hearing all sides of the issue.
While the team members all feel that they had a voice,
they may not agree with the team leader's decision and
may feel like they had been manipulated into a decision.
A related approach that takes about the same amount of time is that the leader,
stops the debate and takes a vote on the decision.
Whatever option gets a majority of the vote wins.
While this is less manipulative and
the majority of the team buys into the decision,
the minority may not support the decision and actively work to make it fail.
The approach that will have the most involvement and
buy in is to decide with a team consensus.
But this can take a very long time.
There's probably a time and place for
each of the approaches during the life cycle of a team.
The team leader must decide which approach best fits the circumstances.
Is it more important to make a quick decision or to have full
support in buy in?
So let me show you the approach I use to speed the team along
when choosing to decide by consensus.
First, define the problem or issue, then brainstorm alternatives making sure that
everyone has a chance to contribute to the list of alternatives.
If the list is too long, I'd trim it down to ten or less with a multi-vote process.
Discuss the remaining alternatives, noting the pros and cons of each.
Determine the criteria that should be used to select the best alternative
then do a preliminary vote to see if you have agreement.
If you don't have agreement, ask individuals to discuss their vote and
explain their reasoning.
Vote again to see if you are now closer to agreement.
Discuss again any remaining issues to be certain everyone has had
a chance to be heard.
Based upon the last vote, ask everyone if they can at least support the decision
even though it may not have been their first choice.
If so, you have consensus.
Team decision making can unify a team or destroy it.
As team leader, manage the process well to help the team succeed.