Develop potential solutions
Now comes the step where you start brainstorming decisions and possible options that may generate positive outcomes. In a pinch you will move through these steps quickly. When you have time, you can think a little more on these items. Decision-making is not as involved as Strategic Planning, but it impacts your operations so you need to devote yourself to getting better at making decisions.
You could write these down so that you can take a look at them. The next step is thinking it through, so you need to prep for that. Make a list of the options. Don’t worry too much at this time about the best solution, just get them down on paper or sorted in your head.
You can throw out the obvious ones that will not fit your criteria for success. If replacing a server is not an option after a crash, then don’t list it. If swapping parts in a dead machine is an option – list it.
Once you have your list move to…
Analyzing the alternatives
Now take the list and review it? What might work and what might not? What cost money and what does not? What can staff do and what can they not do? What has worked before and what has not? What does management expect? What takes time and what is fastest?
The outcome should fall into your matrix for good decisions. Most of the time it will be success if it:
- Makes money for the firm
- Saves money for the firm
- Gets people back to work fast
- Preps for the long haul
- Expands operations
- Avoids the same problem in the future
- Advances your firms capabilities
- Falls within the company plans
- Gets the project out the door
- Makes you firm more marketable
I could go on and on, but you get the idea. There needs to be some focus on why you chose the route you want to take. You need to define and defend your decision.
If it is a mystery (as sometimes hardware and software problems are) then stack the options for recovery into priority. You don’t reformat a server hard drive because one file is lost. You start small and move to more invasive measures as you proceed.
By listing and analyzing your options, better decisions will be achieved.
When decision time comes there are always limiting items that come in to play. Knowing the limits and constraints will improve your decision making by placing boundaries around the extents of what could be done.
These boundaries may include time constraints that limit the time you can take in the progress of the change or repair. It might be money or funds. It might be manpower and limits on the number of hours you can spend in the effort. Whatever it may be, you have to take into account these factors.
Limits are placed on you by others, by your firm, by the marketplace or by regulations. Following the restrictions is critical. An example may be the disposing of electronic waste is not allowed by just throwing it into the dumpster. You cannot just toss those old monitors into the trash. You have to process them thru e-waste firms and drop spots.
When defining what you can do you have to take into account what you cannot do. Unlimited budget and time could make every decision easy, but that is not the reality most of us live in.
Our topic is decisions. As we all know, decisions are based on the available information you have to process prior to making the call. If you have very little information to go on, you run the risk of making the wrong choice. If you gather too much, then sometimes it clouds the water.
Some decisions are made on very few details and facts. They are obvious to all that the direction to choose if fairly obvious. Not much time is spent thinking about the choices and the outcome. Everyone quickly agrees to move forward.
But some decisions require greater levels of investigation and processing of data. These are the decisions I want to chat about.
Where do you get the data and information you need to make a large decision? How much data do you need? Who do you speak with?
Some of this is pretty standard stuff, so I will not spend a lot of time on it.
Search Online. Go to your favorite search tool and type in the info you are looking for. Use topic based searches, like “best plotters” or use related terms options in Google. Just an a tilde ~ to your search term, like “~plotters” and at the bottom of the screen you will see related searches that Google might think you should try. You can also just type out the entire question as if you were talking to someone, like “what is the best plotter for mylar output?” and be sure to dig a few screen in, not just the first page.
Read. More online stuff. Blogs, twitter feeds, websites, vendor sites, reseller sites. Just read as much as you can.
Talk. Talk to people in your firm and outside your firm. Talk to people who have been down the search road before you. Talk to the front line workers at your office. Talk to some of the on-line personalities that you have read from the prior step. You would be surprised that most of them will give you some advice via email.
How much? When you start to feel overwhelmed, you may have enough information. Review it and sift through it a few times. You may have some holes in your information spread that need to be filled. Reading it again may prompt more questions.
This is not an exhaustive list, just a good place to start.
You cannot decide what to do next until you know what or where there is a problem or opportunity for progress. Identifying these is the first step.
Problems and issues that come up are easy to identify. They present themselves every day and just need to be addressed. But what exactly are you looking for? Here is a way of narrowing the search for the real problem.
I look in five areas for my troubleshooting: (taken from my BAD CAD series)
The Files - This is the first place I look. Most often the file or an object in the file is corrupt. I need to find out if the problem is resident in the files as they were created, edited, plotted, etc. I look here first and spread my investigation to the following areas in order
The Machine - Next I look to the persons PC. Does the problem only happen on one machine? Is it a machine or system variable that is set incorrectly? Is it hardware troubles?
The User - I always talk to the user to find out what has happened, what happened before it broke and how they got to where they are. It is quite often a mistake, a misunderstood tool or a bad click that got them here.
The Server - Sometimes the network or server hardware acts up. Don’t forget to look here.
The Software - There are always “bugs” in the software. A tool that is not yet mature, not designed to be used in the way it is used or just not programmed correctly.
If it is not an obvious problem but rather a decision related to what might be done next, read my series on Strategic Planning.
Managers and line workers are called on to make decisions every day. Some are small and can be processed quickly and others are major efforts. Learning to make good decisions takes time and usually takes a lot of bad decisions into account.
How do you work through the decisions you make? Do you have a process or method that seems to work for you?
People differ in their approaches to making decisions and there is not one single effective tool that works every time. Sifting through information, defining boundaries, reflecting on issues and outlining a choice changes with every situation you may be involved in. That being said, there are some common steps in moving from undecided to decided.
Making decisions have the following general commonality be structured in the following steps
- Define the problem
- Gather information
- Identify limiting factors and constraints
- Develop potential solutions
- Analyze the alternatives
- Making the Call (Selecting the best option)
- Implement the decision
Each one of these steps can allow mistakes and misjudgments to creep in. If you add establishing a control and evaluation system then you have even more areas that may derail your efforts.
Making good decisions is a mix of art and science. The artistic side takes into account political climate, personalities, entrenched camps, bullies, overbearing bosses and much more. The science of it includes the gathering and processing of data, drawing conclusions, weeding out invalid perspectives and getting the raw information packaged for review.
Mixing these arts and sciences takes skill. Knowing which side is given more weight takes some thinking. Does strong data override political climate? Does a strong willed boss make your research irrelevant? When do you push forward even when others are pushing back?
We will discuss these issues and more in the coming posts.
I have written extensively on delivering the messages that Managers have to deliver. Here are a few links to read from my past writings
Can we talk? – Principles of CAD Management
Henri Fayol (1841-1925) was a French mining engineer who went on to become Director of Mines with over 1000 employees. His company flourished and was the largest producer of steel and iron in France during his days. In 1916 he published his perspectives in the book “Administration Industrielle et Générale”. Included in his [...]
The Power of the Written Word
Communication is so valuable and written communication is the artifact and record of a good process. Writing is becoming a lost art for the common person. Go back 150 years and read the articulate correspondence of common farmers who had become enlisted men in the American Civil War. They are eloquent and full of great [...]
Talk is Cheap – but so valuable
Communication is one area that can always be improved. Getting the message across to others is what every manager has to do. Communicating well and consistently is not easy. You may do a good job of communicating the message out, but you might not do it often enough or to the right people. Or you [...]
Email Guidelines – A series of posts
Here are some general guidelines I use for email. I have developed many of these and collected them and just picked them up here and there. If I have copied them from the net and not given credit it is because I do [...]
Communication has so many obstacles. Think about it. Even simple communication takes so many steps. You have to develop the message in your mind then define how you are going to communicate it (written, verbal, etc.) then deliver the message. The person receiving it has to hear, see or read it (or even feel it if it has physical characteristics). After that they have to interpret it, process it, understand it and then begin defining their reaction. So even a simple message or question like “What’s for dinner?” has to pass through three steps of delivery and four steps of reception before the other party even starting thinking of a response.
Now think about how easy it is to have someone state something incorrectly or to vaguely for others to grasp, or for the other party to misinterpreted the statement.
Let’s take the delivery side first. Is it a hop, skip or jump?
When things need rapid communication, you just blurt them out, like yelling “Fire” or “Look out”. Delaying the communication could cause or allow more damage than overstating the concern. Just get it out there. But other messages need more refinement. Let’s take a look at what problems I have seen in defining and delivering the message.
Defining the Message
Don’t start talking until you have most of it figured out: Try to think through the entire communication prior to starting. Do you have all the info needed? Do you know what questions might be asked from what you are stating? Not having it all wrapped up is okay if you state that up front. Bringing someone in to assist with defining the initiative is okay as long as they know you are not finished with the entire process.
Not enough detail: I have gotten so many messages from others that have been calls to action (asking me to do something) in which there is not enough detail to make it happen. It makes me think they have not fully thought out the idea or initiative. They leave out critical who, what, when, where and expect me to define the How. When asking someone for someone’s help – you need to include the reason for needing it and then provide them with the exact information you need and when you need it.
Too much detail: The flip side of not enough is too much. Some emails I get (and some that I write) have way too much info and people just don’t read them all the way through. When I find myself typing too much in an email I usually try to add a summary of critical items or highlight in bold some data the needs to be transferred. In conversation, look for body language that you are talking too long. Keep messages short and to the point.
Redundancy Works
I have commented before that managers should repeat themselves often. Not so much making the exact same statements, but sharing the same information in differing ways. Multiple times.
In a recent article in Harvard Business Review (Effective Managers say the same thing twice – or more, May 2011) Tsedal Neeley and Paul Leonardi actually did a study on redundant messages. It stated the managers who sent more redundant messages got tasks done faster and with fewer hiccups. The context was managers who had formal power over the team members and those that did not. 21% of the messages sent by managers who were working with people they did not have formal power over (like many CAD and BIM Managers) were defined as redundant. When someone had formal power, the messages that repeated reduced to 12%. It was observed that those with formal power assumed that workers and team members would just do what they were told and so repeating messages was unneeded.
What they found is that those without formal organizational reporting power over others tended to send messages the repeated what was discussed to reinforce what was discussed. This way they felt they were insuring that the message was understood. Those with formal power tended to become redundant when they noticed that the message was no received correctly. So reinforcing prior to misunderstandings provided better results than correcting misunderstanding after they happen.
They found that with the modern offices working in project teams and with people on multiple teams, there is a need to refresh and repeat messages to ensure that people get the communication in a way they understand and at a time they are ready to receive it.
This reinforces my perspective that managers should be repeating the messages they try to send to others in many differing ways. Redundancy can be a verbal message followed by a memo or email. Or it could be a meeting announcement followed by personal reminders to people.
So repeat yourself. Over and over. Say it again in another way. Send the message multiple times. (How is that for redundancy?)
Communication, like your golf score or penmanship, can always be improved. Letting people know what you have decided as a Manager is part of the job. Doing it effectively can be tough. When you have come to a conclusion either on your own or with your team, you need to let everyone know the outcome of the process. I have always encouraged managers to be expansive and redundant. Let’s talk about the first.
Expansive Communication
There are many formal and informal ways to get the message out. Formal communication such as memos and documentation are great for documenting the decisions and getting verification that everyone is on the same page. There is nothing like seeing it in writing to confirm that what was discussed is what is to be implemented. When people see it in writing – it carries more weight in the decision making process. Documentation is good for defining the exact content of the message. Others can read an confirm or reject the content of verbal messages that may be floating around the office. Informal communication runs the gamut of just talking to IM chats and more.
There is also Instant and Delayed methods of communication. As I mentioned face to face talking is instant as is chatting online. We can also include the telephone and cell phone communication and many collaboration tools that promise instant exchange of ideas. Delayed communication would include snail mail, interoffice pouches, faxing, email, voice mail or text messaging. These provide no guarantee of delivery at a specific time, but will get through at some point.
The point of bringing formal,informal, instant and delayed methods of communication is to get the point across that there are many and you need to be using all of them…
More to come.
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