Decision making skills

This recherche decribes overview of decision making process with related skills needed. Whole process is decomposed to sub-areas with examples of methods to cover them. From my point of view decision making is equal to how to solve the problem so problem solving techniques can be used to make decision. Every decision making method wouldn't be suitable for every decision making case. Suitability needs to be always evaluated. As an example - I will use a decision how to name the new application.

The following section contains a general decomposition of the decision making process with suggested techniques to cover each part. The most important techniques are described in more detail below.

Decision making (= problem solving) general process:

1. Clearly define the decision to be made.
   • Definition has to contain also limitations if they are present. Budget, time, resources.
2. Collecting ideas - brainstorming.
3. Ideas categorization - affinitity diagrams, voting.
4. Category description - mind mapping, group passing.
5. Evaluate final decision (= problem root cause) - fishbone diagram, interrelationship diagram, 5 whys.

Application on example how to name the new application

1. We need to decide on name for the new application.
   • Application manages sharing cars. Selecting, using, paying.
   • The name shouldn't be related to an animal, already used, longer than 8 characters.
   • The name shouldn't contain punctuation.
   • The name should be easy to pronounce.
2. Write down names which comes to your mind - used brainstorming.
3. Categorise them by kind of use. As category name use kind of use, specific name or composition of initial letters. Using affinity diagrams.
4. Write down category name and limitations on cards, make arrow connection between limitation and category name if related. Category name with most connections is chosen => final decision. Using interrelationship diagram.

Suggested methods to cover sub-areas of the decision-making process

Brainstorming (for collecting ideas)

Starting point of decision making, collect ideas, individual or group technique. Goal: Collect ideas how to make (realise) a decision Steps:

• Clearly define the decision
• Make the decision definition always visible - on board
• Define limits for collecting ideas - time or count

Afinity diagrams

Helpful for categorization lots of ideas. Individual or group technique. Goal: Group collected ideas into logical groups facilitating making decision over group Steps:

• Group collected ideas by each member
• Discuss grouping as a team
• Groups are named - by collective agreement, majority (more than half voted), plurarity (highest number of votes)

Mind mapping

Especially helpful for individual problem solving. Helps to make decision which problem has to be solved first. Visualises the relationship between thoughts and data. Goal: Visualisation as a whole (problem) helps the human brain to understand the problem and focus on important parts of the problem. Shade out details from main ideas. Steps:

• Write the main problem in the center of the paper
• First thoughts (subproblems) related to the main problem are visualised thick line labelled by description of subproblem = branch
• Each branch by different color
• Use of images enhances visualisation
• Further thoughts related to sub-problem comming from sub-problem node by thinner line

Other decision making techniques:

Group passing - problem solving idea is passed through group of people, each one improving on the previous suggestion.

Stepladder - first problem solving idea is discussed in core group (2 members), at each step core group is expanded by another member who presents his/her idea first.

Interrelationship diagram - determine the root cause of the problem, sub-problems relationship diagram is created - reations between subproblems are determined and visualized by arrows => root cause is the sub-problem with highest number of output relations (arrows).

Fishbone diagram - determine the root causes, sub-problems are categorized (main bones), 5 whys is asked to each category to get root cause => categories root causes are root causes of the problem.

Force field analysis - evaluation of introducing the change by evaluation of for or against forces.

5 whys - 5 why questions is asked in a row starting from the initial problem (Why it happend?) and continuing with asking to previous answer. Last answer is root cause of the problem.

Conclusion

At first sight, formalising the decision making process looked boring to me, but after creating this recherche I can say that mind mapping and 5 Whys techniques are interesting and can be used for decision making and problem solving in real life situations - not only in software development.