Advancing in your career comes with the requirement of making more decisions. Those decisions impact employees, customers and financial results. Your ability to make good decisions in a timely manner can make or break your career. Given that, I thought it might be helpful to outline a process and options to consider.

Step 1: Understand the full context of the situation.

Many decisions have to do with coming up with solutions to a problem or actions to take to avoid a negative situation. Suppose you are the manager of a customer support center and are told, “We have a serious problem with our customer support line, customers are on hold too long before getting help.”?  Without asking more questions, the manager is likely to start solving for the phone line response time by focusing on ways to reduce the response time—for example, adding more phone lines, adding more phone representatives, or increasing the hours of service. These solutions will address the symptoms of the problem—overloaded phone lines—but may not address the root of the problem. Too often, managers make the mistake of seeking solutions before they understand the nature of the problem or situation.

Step 2: Perform root cause analysis.

To get to the root of the problem, you should be thinking about whycustomer calls have increased dramatically. Is one product in particular responsible for an inordinate number of calls? Is there a flaw in the product? Are the instructions that the customer receives missing some important step? Are all the call center staff completing the required training? Be careful not to assume from the outset that you know what the problem is. Focus your efforts on getting to the root cause   by framing the problem in a variety of different ways and assessing whether the available information supports your theories. Throughout the entire process, ask “why?” and other open-ended questions that encourage exploration.

Step 3: Get Creative in Solution Ideas. 

In order to make an informed decision, you need choices. Generating alternatives creates those choices. Consider this scenario: A marketing manager at a snack foods company calls a meeting with his team to discuss how to increase chip & nut sales in Asia. Everyone just looks at one another so the manager breaks the silence by suggesting they change the current packaging. Following this cue, someone offers supporting statistics about packaging & consumer trends. Another describes the packaging of a product that has done well in Asia. The meeting concludes with the assignment of a task force to research new packaging options. 

This meeting proceeded smoothly. So went wrong? The manager didn’t successfully engage the team in generating alternatives. He didn’t promote healthy debate & constructive conflict. Instead, group harmony resulted in an action step based on the first idea that emerged— packaging options. There was little creativity or innovative thinking, therefore, no new ideas surfaced & the group settled on the first alternative suggested, which was the manager’s idea! This is an opportunity to conduct a brainstorming session. Start with a blank flipchart page. At the start of the meeting ask team members to suggest any ideas that come into their heads, or ask individuals to take a few minutes to develop their own lists of ideas to share publicly. Then, record the ideas but don’t discuss their merits at this point. Don’t criticize, instead focus on identifying as many alternatives as possible. You can evaluate the ideas after you have a list of possibilities.

Step 4: Evaluate Solution Alternatives. 

Here are variables to consider when evaluating the alternatives:

• Ethics: Is this alternative legal? Is it in the best interests of the customers, the employees, and the community where we operate?
• Costs: How much will this option cost? Will it result in a cost savings in the short/long-term? Any hidden costs? Additional costs down the road?
• Benefits: Are there financial benefits? Will it increase the quality of our product? Will customer satisfaction increase?
• Time: How long will it take to implement? Could there be delays? If so, what impact will this have on any schedules?
• Feasibility: Can this alternative be implemented realistically? Any obstacles that must be overcome?
• Resources: How many people are needed to implement? Are they available? What other projects will suffer if we focus on this option?
• Risks: What are the risks associated with this? Could this option result in financial loss or competitive advantage? How might competitors respond?
• Intangibles: Will help our reputation improve? Will our customers and/or our employees be more loyal?

Step 5: Decide On A Solution. 

In some cases, there is one clear choice, given the alternatives, however, if you are offered several acceptable options, these techniques can be helpful in finalizing your decision:

• Prioritization matrix – is created by listing your objectives in making the decision and assigning them a value (highest = best). Then, make each of these objectives, along with its corresponding value, a column header for your matrix. Make each of your alternatives a row. Next, for each alternative, rate the objectives on a scale of 1 to 10 (10 = best); then, multiply your ratings by the priority values. Add all the scores for each alternative to determine which has the higher number. This is your best decision, based on your priorities.
• Trade-off technique – A trade-off table might look like this:

• Decision tree – is a visual tool to help you consider several courses of action and determine what will be the best solution. You can create a balanced picture of the risks and rewards of each alternative.

Let’s be clear, not all decisions require this level of analysis, but for those that are more complex, it’s nice to have a proven process and tools to assist you along the way.