HOW TO MAKE A DECISION

ome decisions are so simple that you're barely aware you're making them, while others are time consuming, high risk, and can leave you feeling anxious.
Decisions can make or break a project or an entire business. And they often involve complex and unpredictable interpersonal issues, too.

What Is Decision Making?

Decision making is a process of choosing between possibilities. It is often part of problem solving. The more complex the decision, the more factors you'll need to consider before deciding on a course of action. There are many tools and strategies that can help you to make decisions more thoughtfully and effectively.

What Are the 3 Types of Decision Making?

1. Strategic: Long-term, high-level decisions determine the direction of an organization and require a lot of forethought.
2. Tactical: These decisions translate strategic direction into action, focusing on how and why work gets done.
3. Operational: Daily, routine decisions put strategic and tactical goals into practice.

Decision makers at all levels benefit from building strong decision-making skills.

What Can Prevent Effective Decision Making?

• Lacking relevant information: When you don’t fully understand a situation, it’s hard to make a good decision about it.
• Misidentifying the problem: Be clear that your decision addresses a root cause, not just a symptom.
• Failing to consider risks: Assess the consequences of each course of action before choosing one.
• Letting bias cloud your judgment: View your choices with objectivity and seek stakeholder feedback.
• Not communicating: Many decisions involve more than one person, so make sure everyone’s on the same page.

In this article and video, we explore a seven-step approach for improving the quality of your decision making, and for boosting your chances of a successful outcome.

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What Are the 7 Steps of Decision Making?

To avoid making a bad decision, you need to bring a range of decision-making skills together in a logical and ordered process. We recommend the following seven steps:

1. Investigate the situation in detail.
2. Create a constructive environment.
3. Generate good alternatives.
4. Explore your options.
5. Select the best solution.
6. Evaluate your plan.
7. Communicate your decision, and take action.

Quick Tips on Decision Making

• This process will ensure that you make a good decision in a complex situation, but it may be unnecessarily complicated for small or simple decisions. In these cases, jump to Step 5.
• If you need to make a quick decision under pressure, see our articles, OODA Loops and The TDODAR Decision Model.
• Take our How Good is Your Decision-Making? quiz to find out how well you're doing now!

Let's look at each of the seven steps in detail. Each step features a list of related Mind Tools resources to help you further.

Step 1: Investigate the Situation in Detail

Decisions often fail because key factors are missed or ignored from the outset. So, before you can begin to make a decision, you need to fully understand your situation.