Deciding Dynamically
WE DO IT all the time! If we don't, you'll find a bunch of namby-pamby wimps who couldn't, individually or collectively say, "Boo!" to a goose! But the truth is that we are all makes of decisions whether it is in the big things (such as career, marriage or health). or the small things (which movie to see, what to make for dinner, where to cross the road) The point is that there are times when making decisions is critical and its at times like these that no one can afford to be wrong! Even in a `small' thing, like crossing the road, you can come to a rather painful and abrupt end if your decision were to be wrong! Making the correct decision is therefore something which we must all master, and its important that we get it right every time. I call this Dynamic Decisioning.
This system has helped countless millions get it right every time, much to their satisfaction and benefit. Well, if they can, so can you!
Elucidation: First define why the decision is necessary. There must be a problem or an issue that needs resolution.
Articulate it, quantify it, define it and investigate it. Once you know what it is and how it was caused, you can begin the analysis of how to deal with it.
Goal definition: Discover what the immediate goal is and the long-term goal that is desired. Having done that, work them out in their component parts.
Try and focus on what will achieve these goals. The idea is to simplify the issues involved so that they are reduced to bite-sized pieces. After all, the only way to eat an elephant is to take one bite at a time!
Methodical madness: Work on the hows. The success of things depends most often on how you work them out.
Develop a methodology that addresses all issues and leads to the desired short- and long-term goals that you have set out. Check out the facts of the issue, the benchmarks that you need to see that everything is going as per plan; work in several time/reality checks to monitor the progress so that you can provide solutions when they are needed.
Research and analysis: Collect all the facts you need as above, and organise them so that an informed decision can be made to address the issue at hand.
Find out everything you can about what happened on the way to the creation of the issue, how it became one, the effect it is having on the concerned parties. Once you have these facts, analyse them to see whether the answer to the problem is contained within the issue itself (it often is).
Try and discover a predictable pattern in the progress of the issue because most solutions are found in the nature of the pattern of progress. In the research and analysis process, the use of automation has been seen to be very significant.
It certainly will slice several hours off your time-to-resolution!
Remember plan "B" and "C": Murphy's law states that, `If something can go wrong; it will.' To counter this, it is wise to have a second and third plan that can kick in when the first iteration does not work. No single plan can work, often because the assumptions made in the beginning will be found to be erroneous. Also it is wise to accept the truism that nothing is constant except change, and it is wise to assume that since conditions are likely to change, the original plan may need some tweaking or considerable change to fit the changed circumstances.
Fail-safe planning always leads to good decisions.So why plan "A" at all? Plan "A" should be the best plan of all because you will have worked in the result of all the research analysis you will have done.
It is the ideal plan given the prevailing circumstances and all future iterations are only developments of the base plan. The only reason you will change it is if the circumstances change. A plan is theory. It becomes workable if you implement it! So plan "A" should be detailed, complete, down to the identity of the implementers, the beneficiaries and the benchmarking.
Wait, watch and check progress: To make any decision dynamic, the progress of any plan must be constantly monitored to see if it's on track and whether all the checkpoints have been passed successfully.
Benchmarks are important to measure the fruition of any decision and a constant stream of feedback should be encouraged so that any glitches can be addressed instantly. After all, for decisions to be right the final phrase should be: Problem? No problem!
ABHIMANYU ACHARYA
abhi.hyd@cnkonline.com
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