decision timing from decision innovation

© 2009 – 2013 Decision Innovation, Inc. – All Rights Reserved.

Gary DeGregorio

Keith TenBrook

© 2009 – 2013 Decision Innovation, Inc. – All Rights Reserved. 2

Gary DeGregorio ◦ As a career executive with Motorola, Gary worked in the field of

business software applied research for over fifteen years with a focus on decision making, decision-based software and collaboration frameworks. With a strong focus on innovation, Gary developed an approach for creating knowledge in the context of a decision framework.

◦ These experiences, coupled with a strong personal vision for leveraging the value of decision tools in both personal and business decision making, led Gary and Keith to build and launch Decision Innovation, Inc.

Keith Ten Brook ◦ Keith brings a successful executive business career in leading teams

to develop new and innovative products. He built a successful career with Motorola and Northrop Corporation where he leveraged his engineering strengths to lead teams in creating new technologies and products.


“Time plays a role in almost every decision. And some decisions define your attitude

about time.”

- John Cale (1942 - ), Welsh Musician, Composer, and Singer-songwriter


Mere seconds for first responders

Minutes to choose what to eat

Hours to days for a significant purchase

Weeks to months for a large investment

Months to years for strategic decisions or major life choices

When is the decision or resolution needed?


Val

ue

Time

Increasing knowledge

Decreasing benefit or increasing

loss

Best Time to Decide


Shooting from the hip - plunging in (Russo, Schoemaker, 1990) without adequate information

Planning fallacy - the bias toward underestimating how long actions will take

Primacy effect - the tendency to weigh initial events more than latter events which would promote a quicker decision


Immediate gratification - people tend to prefer immediate payoffs over later payoffs, and this increases as payoffs get closer

Neglect of risk - the inclination to completely disregard probability or risk when making uncertain decisions


Herd instinct - common bias to adopt the views and follow the behaviors of the majority

Shortsighted shortcuts (Russo, Schoemaker, 1990) - relying too heavily on convenient facts or easily obtained information

Reference:

Russo, J., & Schoemaker, P. (1990, October). Decision Traps – The Ten Barriers to Brilliant Decision-Making & How to Overcome Them.


Analysis paralysis or information bias - the tendency to seek information that can not affect the outcome or being more focused on the process than the result

Procrastination - waiting too long to gather information

Maintaining the status quo or complacency


Recency effect - the mistake of weighting recent events higher than earlier events which could encourage a delayed decision

Normalcy bias - rejecting the need to react or plan for a failure or disaster that has never happened before


Goal is to find the balance between the needed knowledge to choose effectively while minimizing the value lost due to decision delay

Generally, gathering the information that would enable objective evaluation of the alternative solutions can be difficult and costly

Optimum is rarely achieved in practice


Acquiring the internal knowledge (individually or within an organization) that would characterize the success factors or goals for the decision is a minimum that must be achieved to have any hope for making an effective choice

Not obtaining this more easily gathered internal knowledge is like starting a search without determining what you are looking for


Difficult and complex decisions can often lead to large information gathering efforts

Often this is a result of exposing how little is known about possible consequences of decision alternatives

In this case, some effort is needed along a solution path to expose what "we don't know we don't know"


Initiate lower cost exploratory efforts along the paths of solution alternatives where high uncertainty exists

Make the decision and proceed along the preferred solution alternative with checkpoints in place that would force a new decision based on new knowledge

Take actions to reduce the known negative consequences resulting from the decision delay


From Bill Jensen's book “Simplicity - The New Competitive Advantage” – 5 questions that, when answered, led to action: 1. How is this [decision] relevant to what I do? 2. What, specifically should I do? 3. How will I be measured, and what are the consequences? 4. What tools and support are available? 5. WIIFM - What’s In It For Me? For us?

Question #4 was identified as being the most important, suggesting the increasing need for decision making tools that can help deal with the cognitive overload that results from information that is doubling every three years.


1.Frame 2.Innovate 3.Decide 4.Manage

Manage

TM

Our 4-Step Process:

http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/planning-decision-making.html

http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/decision-alternatives.html

http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/how-to-make-a-decision.html

http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/decision-implementation.html

http://www.decision-making-solutions.com/decision_making_process.html


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