Decision Quality

When I refer to “decision quality”, I’m talking about a framework, process, tool set, and set of principles for making high-quality decisions. In other words, decision quality is both something we do, and something we want.

Decision Quality grew out of the discipline of decision analysis developed at the Stanford School of Engineering and at the Harvard Business School. Because of the academic orientation and historic focus on quantitative analysis, the big users have typically been leading companies in pharmaceuticals, oil and gas, utilities, chemicals, automotive, telecom, various governmental agencies, and to a lesser extent financial services.

Typically these organizations have used decision analysis to make resource allocation decisions, capital decisions, portfolio decisions—really any type of decision that could be mathematically modeled and tied back to some sort of quantifiable set of values.

In 2002, I started a firm with Clint Korver and Bob Cronin called DQI, LLC for the purpose of making decision quality—our version of decision analysis—available to a much broader group of users. The focus was on helping organizations apply proven decision models, methods, and tools to the types of decisions line and staff leaders, managers, and individual contributors face every day.

I continue to do that work with an eye towards building organizational decision quality through the following services:

• Decision Consulting. Analysis through recommendations on how to improve organizational decision quality.
• Decision Playbooks. Leverage best practices through the use of templated decision tools built for specific applications.
• Decision Compression. Application of a structured, time-compressed decision quality methodology to specific decisions.
• Decision Training. Custom configured training and tools designed to meet specific organizational decision needs.
• Decision Coaching. One-on-one coaching with decision owners on specific decisions and how to create widespread adoption and use of decision quality throughout an organization.

Decision Consulting

Consulting is a word that can mean a lot of things. In this case, it is work intended to help our clients do two things:

• Understand more clearly the decision dynamics in their organization. This takes the form of analysis of selected decisions through interviews with key stakeholders and review of project work papers, communications, and outputs.
• Make decisions about how they want to make decisions. We use the decision quality framework to guide a decision process that leads to specific choices that impact how people use methods, models, tools, and information to make high-quality decisions.

This work can be generalized to broad classes of decisions—for example all decisions made by the management of a specific business unit—or done very specifically with a single decision type, for example how technology decisions are made.

The output is a series of recommendations that have been built up using decision quality, supported with relevant work product. The recommendations can be constrained to methods and practices, or can range to include organizational alignment issues.

This work can be extended to include the design of decision processes, models, tools and training to address the decision situations identified in the analysis.

Decision Compression / Decision Dialog

Most managers and leaders have used facilitators. While this practice often helps create useful dialog within a meeting, it doesn’t necessarily ensure significant progress towards a decision. In fact, it’s usually the case that these types of meetings generate more work, not less: Work that’s usually done out of sight of the key stakeholders, meaning more meetings, which may or may not lead to a decision.

I’m a huge fan of taking the time and pain out of decision processes using two different processes: Decision Compression and Decision Dialog. Both are based on the decision quality framework.

In many cases, all or most of the decision process can be compressed into a single work session, usually lasting more than one day. We call this type of work a Decision Compression Session (or DCS). It is a structured method for shortening or compressing the time it takes to work a decision to a logical conclusion, which could be either a final decision or a limited set of well described recommendations. As you would expect, we use the full set of decision quality tools to manage the decision process from presenting problem to final outcome.

A decision compression session is typically run as a face-to-face meeting attended by all the relevant decision owners and stakeholders. It works brilliantly as part of a Structured Visual Thinking exercise The idea is to “bring the smart people to the problem.” Get the people, the information, and the problem together in a room for an extended period of time, and work the problem until it’s done.

Next steps after a decision compression session are usually a presentation to a decision maker, a study, a pilot, or the creation of a project plan that leads to a rollout and implementation.

In some cases, decision processes cannot be compressed very much. In those cases, there is a need for a succession of meetings interspersed with specific kinds of work: framing; alternative generation; information gathering; and analysis.

For these types of decisions, the best practice is to use something called the Decision Dialog Process. This is a structured method for managing complex decision processes that often involve some combination of multiple decision owners, stakeholders, and decision workers. Each step terminates in a meeting with a definitive agenda, specific outputs, and prescriptive guidelines for dialog.

The Decision Dialog Process could end at any of the key milestones, but the logical conclusion is a decision on a specific course of action.

Decision Quality Training

One obvious objective of any decision quality work is to help leaders, managers, and individual contributors to do one or both of the following:

• Use a process and framework to make high-quality decisions.
• Use a process and a framework to help others, or to cause others, to make high-quality decisions.

The best mechanisms for supporting this objective are some combination of training and tools. We presently offer two classes of decision training, both of which are configured and customized to meet the client’s needs.

The first is called “Decision Ownership” training. It is designed to teach decision owners—the people ultimately responsible for declaring decisions and for the final outcomes—how to organize and manage a high-quality decision process. The training is also ideal for people who do not own but manage or participate in organizationally complex decisions.

The training teaches the core models and methods of decision quality with an emphasis on framing decisions, getting the right people involved, generating alternatives, and making trade-offs. It is usually conducted as a two-day seminar with pre-work and pre-reading with a follow-up clinic six to ten weeks later.

The method is heavily case-based and participants work live decisions. Clinics refresh user understanding of the core materials, add new best practices, and allow for more directed use of decision quality to specific decisions. Follow-on modules focus on more thorough and quantified analysis of alternatives and trade-offs.

Our clients use this training to help managers develop their leadership skills in building and improving their organizations capability to make decisions.

The second category of training is an adaptation of Decision Ownership training, and is aimed at the particular needs of Strategic Account Managers (major accounts, key accounts, global accounts, etc.).

The training teaches the core models and methods of decision quality, with an emphasis on applying the models and methods to a job that centers on managing decisions, dialogs, and “decision collisions” simultaneously in two organizations: the company and the client.

It is usually conducted as a two-day seminar with pre-work and pre-reading. The method is heavily case-based and participants work live decisions. Clinics refresh user understanding of the core materials, add new best practices, and allow for more directed use of decision quality to specific decisions. Follow-on modules focus on more thorough and quantified analysis of alternatives and trade-offs.

Decision Coaching

Decision coaching is an extension of either training or decision compression work. It is meant as a support to decision owners to help them in their efforts to manage complex decisions as well as drive the successful broad-based adoption and use of decision quality across their organizations.

Decision coaching typically takes the form or a series of phone calls, email exchanges, and face to face meetings, all of which are governed by an upfront covenant that frames the overall objectives of the coaching, and describes the various steps and interventions.

To learn more, contact me.