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What were you taught about decision-making in school? Probably not much. For most of us, our education is largely centered on finding the right answer. It's not until most of us are much more experienced that we realize there are really no right answers. If you've ever bought a car, made a business decision, or designed a product, you learned there were no right answers, only good decisions.

Most issues have a variety of satisfactory outcomes. Often, different solutions present themselves as you work your way through a problem. As you learn more about the issue, the criteria used to evaluate these potential solutions also evolve.

For example, reflect on the process you used to make a recent decision. Can you identify the methods or tools that helped you to make that decision? How did you organize the information? How did you manage evolving alternatives and criteria, and evaluations of alternatives relative to those criteria? Perhaps in the situation you recall, people tried to develop and share information that supported their favorite alternatives.

In most organizations such activities are for the most part ad hoc, offering little help in ensuring utilization of the knowledge and abilities of the participants. In fact, ad hoc processes result in either unresolved issues or dissatisfaction with the decisions. Perhaps that's at least a partial explanation of why people dislike meetings so much, especially meetings that are poorly structured and not clearly focused.

When you make a decision, all future activity focuses on that alternative: You begin using time, money, and other resources. Part of decision-making is determining how much commitment each alternative will require to bring it to fruition. Even procrastination—not making a decision—uses resources.

To make a robust decision—one that stands the greatest chance of being "right," you must consider the following:

  • The goal of decision-making is the resolution of an issue—if you can't state the issue, the decision can't be clear either.
  • Making a decision is a process, not an event. Reflect on the process your team uses.
  • Decisions are based on uncertain, evolving, conflicting, incomplete information. Even goals become moving targets. If you are not managing the uncertainty, confliction and evolution, then you probably can't make a decision that will stick.
  • Teams make most business and technical decisions. Teams usually feature people with differing backgrounds, loyalties, and opinions. No one is right—no one is wrong. The goal is to get buy-in from everyone.

So, to answer the question posed in the title—You only know if you made a good decision after it has been put into action. There are no right answers, just good decisions—decisions that are reached through best practices and strategies that make the most of the information at hand. The only way to ensure you find a good solution is to use a robust decision making process.

Avoid the blunders that plague many decisions in today's business and engineering environments through the development of some simple "decision habits." The new book, Making Robust Decisions, presents a simplified approach to helping individuals and organizations establish better decision processes. Learn more by selecting the link below for more information.

Are you ready to improve the decision-making in your organization? Robust Decisions offers a full range of products and services that allow you to benefit by making the best decision every time. Learn more about how to build a strong foundation that enables individuals, teams and entire organizations to consistently make the best possible decisions. Request more information or call 541.758.5088.

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