The Decision Dynamic
The increased risks of strategic IT decision-making demand a new role for IT leaders: that of decision facilitator
by Sharon Drew Morgen
Continued from Page 1
In effect, the technology leader must acquire the additional job of driving effective,
collaborative decisions by incorporating the role of "decision facilitator" into the role
of technology expert. With this additional role, the technologist uses a very defined,
systematic set of structured "facilitative questions" that not only handle the necessary
data, but also establish a clear and mutually agreeable set of objectives and expectations.
(See the sidebar, "Anatomy of a Decision")
In other words, the IT leader should perform the job of translator and lead communicator
in order to:
- Teach the manager how to think about the decisions that will lead to creating a comprehensive solution
- Identify core criteria for all to agree with
- Encourage debate
- Create a continuous communication flow to monitor problems, changes, and reaction times
- Gather all relevant data — technological systems as well as cultural norms that need to be incorporated or represented
- Create a system aligned with the preferred styles of acceptance for users
- Manage time and technology expectations
- Head up regular discussions with stakeholders to catch problems, omissions, or inconsistencies
- Negotiate sticking points, conflicts, or dissatisfaction
- Navigate systems issues inherent in goal/design analysis
- Ensure smooth transition and acceptance
- Create ongoing communication and decisioning systems to maximize efficiency.
- Based on these tasks, here are the functions the IT leader/decision facilitator will need to manage:
- The design and systems specifics that will translate need to deed
- Relationship management
- Communication problems that need to be solved and addressed immediately and collaboratively
- Agreement and negotiation
- Collaborative decisioning — to find the most effective answers to support the effort as a whole
- Unbiased view of the situation, with full understanding of how it needs to shift to accommodate change
- Ability to create and maintain an interdependent work environment
- Ability to know when to bring in experts from within the company, or seek external support when necessary
- Buy-in to accept and manage change and expectations
- Connectivity — ensure all technology is connected with business initiatives, core values, company vision, and current systems.
That's a tall order for anyone — especially someone who has a long-standing,
traditional relationship with the company. However, the decision facilitation model
can reduce all of these challenges to subsets.
Waste No Time
If companies are to win in the unforgiving, fast-paced, and highly competitive
markets of the present and future, they must learn how to collaboratively make
strategic IT decisions in a more productive fashion. In the shadow of the tech
bust, you now know what doesn't work. It's time for all of us to mutually explore,
discover and decide what will.
ANATOMY OF A DECISION
Although most models of decision-making work from an information processing basis, the decision facilitation process makes it possible to bring parties together and drive consensus across functional, organizational, and interorganizational boundaries.
How many times have you identified the information needed to make the "right" decision, and insist on what ends up to be a less effective decision because it fits comfortably into a vision of what a solution should look like? How often are you led by a gut feeling, only to realize afterward that your instincts might not fit into the team's goals? How often do you make a decision based on all the data available, only to discover the other side of the decision is working from a fact pattern different from yours?
These factors lead to poor decision-making. But using the following facilitative questions, a skilled change agent can help a group make collaborative decisions that disparate groups can buy into.
- What goals do you want to uphold? How do you prioritize them, incorporate them, and use them with your systems design? What would stop you from meeting your goals? What resources do you need to ensure success?
- What overarching goals do you need to agree upon? If they differing from those of your colleagues, how do you propose to close the gap to bring the two teams closer?
- What challenges do you face interdepartmentally, interpersonally, and technologically? Challenges in terms of long-term acceptance of your finished product? Challenges with data collection? With buy-in and support from essential information sources?
- What are your apparent constraints? What do you need to understand or do differently in order to manage or overcome these constraints?
- What organizational/cultural/systemic issues must you address to achieve the results you're seeking?
- How do you see the team working together in a way that supports continual communication and problem-solving? Where you see that differing from your colleagues, and how do you propose to close the gap to bring the two teams closer?
- What interpersonal and cultural issues does your team need to address in order to ensure project success? How do you handle the fallout if both teams have different or disparate systems issues?
- How will you know when you've achieved your mutually established criteria for success? When have you failed?
- How will you know when it's time to try something different if you find what you're doing isn't working effectively?
Sharon Drew Morgen [sdm@austin.rr.com] is a decision strategist, author, and consultant. Her latest book, Selling With Integrity (Berkeley Pub Group, 1999), describes the use of decision facilitation methodology in a sales application to support buyer's decisioning. Her current book project is entitled The Decisive Enterprise.
