Tag Decision Making

Entries 2 Total

Being Data-Driven In A World That Increasingly Isn’t

Jul 27, ’09 1:25 PM

As IT leaders we are accustomed to operating in an environment that is often brutally driven by the numbers. Managing a large cost center and IT investments represent a significant fiduciary duty to our organizations, one where cost/benefit, ROI and other financial terms are daily topics of conversation. This is made all the more real by a challenging economic environment and the need to make the most of the limited capital available to us.

We’d like to believe that the decisions we make and the investments we propose for our organizations are fact-based wherever possible:

  • New technology programs are usually proposed based on specific, calculated benefits to the organization and its staff. An analysis of current processes and their costs are compared to estimates of the future-state environment. A high-stakes proposal may be presented to a capital committee or other executive body that weighs investments against each other, and the organization’s strategic plan. While games may be played with the numbers, and while individual persuasiveness and political alliances may play too large a role in some cases, at the end of the day we trust that the facts will win out, and a good decision will be made on the merits.
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Technical Decisions and Being Right

Apr 14, ’09 1:36 PM

In managing technical teams, an IT leader will routinely be in a position of making decisions between two or more competing technical views, systems architectures or proposed solutions.  As “the decider”, you may consider yourself fortunate to have multiple choices presented to you by your staff, as >1 options would seem to increase the likelihood that the most appropriate decision can be found among the competing views.

An unfortunate situation experienced too often by IT leaders is the overwhelming “need to be right” among certain staff members, and that behaviors’ negative impact on the decision-making process.  Whether a product of the times or something unique to the IT field, this need expresses itself similarly to what one might find within a political discussion on cable TV, or a heated religious argument.  Does any of this behavior sound familiar:

  • A polarization of the language used, with words such as “right/wrong”, “its clear”, “its simple”, “its self-evident”.
  • Presented views are long on opinion, short on facts/research and don’t appear to be data-driven.
  • A strong need to convert others to one’s views.
  • If that fails, a discounting of another’s views, or even the person.
  • Its a zero-sum game, and someone has to be wrong/lose.  Its important to identify the winner and loser before everyone leaves the meeting.
  • All individual ideas attached to the losing proposition are also considered invalid.
  • Working with a team member who presented a differing (losing) opinion would water-down the (winning) solution, or otherwise render it useless.
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