The Magic 8 Ball is not a good project management decision-making tool.
In a blog post written by John McKee for TechRepublic a while back, I stumbled upon these three decision-making techniques that have been successfully utilized by great leaders:
- Trust the Marines: The US Marines have a tool they teach their officers called the 70% solution. If you have 70% of the information you need to have, 70% of the analysis you think is required, and feel 70% confident that you are right—get on with it. The Marines feel that a well-reasoned decision that is well executed has a fair chance of success, but no action has no chance of success.
- Take a clue from the coaches: Coaches are always asking questions. By asking questions you will learn the good, the bad, and the ugly—helping you make the best decisions.
- Trust your feelings, Luke: Sometimes your "internal barometer" helps you make decisions and take action. Of course, intuition, gut instinct, or "the Force" might not be a good way to make all your decisions, but it’s often a good place to start.
The ability to make quick and informed decisions is part of what makes a good leader. After all, leaders are paid to make decisions. "Otherwise," writes McKee, "we could just populate entire organizations with lawyers presenting both sides of any case/problem to each other all day long."
Do you have any decision-making tips you’d be willing to share? Do you have project management tools that help you make good decisions?
I like all the three ways suggested in the article. Such simple ways can help make the decision process look more simpler and also it reduces the unwanted politics associated when muliple stakeholders are involved. There is another trick I normally use to come to conclusion on difficult decision check points. Trick — When there are multiple stakeholders with the deliverable to make a decision and there are multiple challenges like clash of common interest, resistance to change, bias, politics etc. one line always helps and that is “what is in the interest of organization”. Try this line and it works as a magic. Please Note:- This is my opinon of above topic Thanks Alok