Unresolved decisions can be very damaging to an organization. You know something needs to be done but can't decide what to do. Deliberation continues among your staff without an actionable conclusion. You have 'analysis paralysis'. Your operation is not moving forward, but you're using resources and your competition is not standing still.

Symptoms of 'Stuck' decision making include the following:

• Holding more than 3 meetings on a single issue
• Continually gathering more information
• Endlessly discussing and deliberating but not coming to a conclusion

'Stuck' deliberation is often resolved at the twelfth hour and by a manager who may be forced to act arbitrarily, if not irrationally. For any organization this is a highly risky way of operating. Here are some pointers for avoiding analysis paralysis:

1. Build a Shared Understanding: Information about the alternatives and criteria in a decision are understood only from each team member's own perspective. Team members may not have a complete picture of the situation, nor the knowledge or time to develop a full, long-term view. The key here is to set up environments that support the sharing of pertinent information needed for the decision.


2. Work to separate Goals from Importance: Separate what is to be achieved (i.e. goals, targets) from how important it is to achieve it. It is easier to agree on goals than what is important.Evaluation uncertainty may swamp out the differences in importance, but only if this goal/importance separation is made explicit.


3. Acknowledge and Manage Uncertainty: The future is always uncertain. The extent of this uncertainty needs to be identified as objectively as possible during decision-making. Engineers and financial analysts in particular are prone to giving single, deterministic values for information that is really a distribution. Push back on them to find the distribution, even if it is in terms like "very sure", "about" or "sort-of". Early in the development of a system all estimates are uncertain and need to be managed as such.Information that is highly uncertain needs to be discounted or its uncertainty reduced if-and-only-if it is important (see item 2)


4. Develop Multiple Alternatives: Always consider multiple courses of action that can be itemized. If the choice is to do A or "do nothing", then make an effort to develop alternatives B and C. Develop methods within your organization that encourage creative options.Find ways to help the champions of each idea compare and contrast their alternatives with others.


5. Define a Decision-making Strategy: Make sure there is an agreed to decision-making strategy. Decision-making by stirring and restirring existing information is not beneficial.


6. Build collaboration: Collaboration means that all stakeholders' opinions are heard during deliberation. Then, even those whose first choice is not chosen will more likely buy in to the outcome. This also gives the whole team a sense of accountability for the final decision.


7. Be Aware of Diminishing Analytical Returns: Analysis is expensive and is likely to postpone resolution. Over-analysis is the risk-averse activity of trying to drive out all uncertainty. When the fidelity of simulation is greater than the uncertainty of the information on which the simulation is based, time and money are being wasted.


8. Reuse History: Work toward learning from past decisions. Evaluating your success requires keeping track of past choices; the actions as well as the results.


9. Find a Platform to manage and fuse uncertain team evaluations: Use proven methods and tools that help your organization reduce risk and avoid deliberative quagmires.