7+1 Decision Making Strategies in Teams
One central part of successful and effective self management of a team is the ability to take concise decisions. Read here about 7 positive and 1 negative decision strategies for your teams!
Working with self-managing teams requires the teams to learn ways for self-management. One crucial aspect is the team decision taking. A major loss factor in many organizations are unclear decisions and thus often a failure to achieve the goal of various meetings: are all the necessary people present? Are more than the necessary people present? What is needed to make the decision? Is this group actually allowed to make this decision and what does that mean? In concrete terms: is this a valid decision or will it be brought up again in the next meeting, in the next round of discussions, perhaps with a different group of participants, doubted, questioned, ignored, discussed again, and ultimately dissolved, thus ruining both meetings?
Self-managing teams need clarity about the decisions they are allowed, want and able to make, as well as clear strategies on how to bring about these decisions so that they are subsequently supported by everyone, inside and outside the team.
Here is an overview of different decision-making strategies:
Democratic decisions are made according to the majority principle, so in short: the options are presented and everyone chooses one, or several, depending on the context. Then the votes are counted and the option with the most votes wins and is used. Most teams use this type of decision-making without questioning it. Probably because we live in a democracy, probably because we have always been shown this, probably also because the decision can be made very quickly by a show of hands or dot voting, which is of course very important if the meeting has already run over time.
But what happens if we choose one of four options by a very small margin, for example with 26% of the votes? Then this also means that 74% of the people involved do not believe that this option is the best. What does this mean for the motivation of those involved to support and defend this decision? It is obvious that the topic will be brought up again in the next meeting and that a new vote will push through your own opinion, your own preferred solution... ever seen that? Probably.
The second decision-making strategy that I would like to introduce here is the autocratic decision . “Ohhh – bad!”, someone might think, looking at a conservative, sole-determining owner of a company and pointing out to me that this is not a team decision and in an agile context we decide as a team… really?
First of all, the decision-making strategy chosen depends on the context and there are certainly situations in which one person has to make and implement difficult decisions alone, even in an agile setting.
Let's look at the product owner: he decides on the priorities in the product backlog. He alone is allowed to do that. He has to do that, he wants to do that and he can do that. Hopefully. He will probably consult with other people on this: stakeholders, development team, management, customer. But in the end he decides. Alone.
The influence that the autocratic decision has on the people who will implement this decision or have to live with it depends on the role he plays and the individual personality of the decision-maker: does he really have the authority and support from the organization to make the decision alone, or will his decision be questioned or even revised afterwards? Can he communicate his arguments for the decision clearly so that everyone can support them? A lot depends on this.
Another decision-making strategy is the consultative individual decision. As with the autocratic decision, there is an expert who makes the decision. However, here it is explicitly expected that the decision-maker will gather the arguments of those involved and use them to make the decision.
Another method of group decision-making is consensus : everyone agrees. This is realistically applicable to a small group of just a few people. However, the larger the number of people, the longer the discussion takes until a solution is found that everyone can agree on. This effort can easily lead to only being able to agree on a very small and insignificant decision: so why bother?
Consensus is increasingly used as a decision-making method in agile teams: no one is strictly against it. This means that everyone has a veto in a vote, but must explain this with valid reasons. Then these points are worked on until a variant is found that no one has a solid counterargument against: everyone either agrees or can live with and support the proposed solution.
A consensus can be reached much faster than a consensus , but of course slower than decisions made alone or based on the majority.
It is important that every counterpoint, every criticism that is appropriate, is heard, asked about and resolved: existing knowledge can be shared, new insights can be gained, risks can be uncovered and opportunities can be communicated. The time invested in generating the decision is therefore a productive work session.
In addition, when a decision is made by consensus, everyone involved is 100% motivated to support the decision. It will not be called into question again later.
You could also let chance decide and flip a coin. Don't laugh: this is a valid and important strategy! If you simply cannot determine whether option A or B is better, this can also mean that both are equally good and the next important step would be to agree on one and pursue it with focus. You save yourself a long period of indecision, during which further insights could actually be gained and product features developed.
And finally, there is the small but subtle difference between these two strategies:
“ No conscious decision ”: either the problem is not recognized, the need for a decision is not seen, or no responsibility is taken to make it. The necessary decision is not made: this is negligent mismanagement!
“ consciously not making a decision ”: in contrast, you can analyze a topic and, with your eyes open and taking into account the risks and opportunities, consciously not make a decision at the moment, leaving the topic and all possible opportunities open until the “last responsible moment” and then re-examining it at a later point in time with more knowledge and then deciding if necessary. This is done consciously, in a controlled manner, taking into account all known aspects. Can be a good strategy.
Even though I write here that decisions should not be immediately questioned in the next meeting in order to create clarity and consistency for everyone, I would like to explicitly emphasize that, of course, any decision can be revised or changed as new insights and knowledge are gained. This is also another decision, possibly with a clear strategy.
