Using decision rules to make decisions

Using decision rules to make decisions
Photo by Jens Lelie / Unsplash

Decisions have consequences and some require people with a competence in the area to contribute to the decision, other times it doesn't.

A decision rule is useful to help you make better decisions. Quite often we default to majority rules, via dot voting. Is this one size fits all approach serving us well?

If we educate ourselves around different ways we can make decisions, we can then use them as tools. Here are some below.

Decision rule 1 - unanimity

  • Everyone agrees with it. Use this when you need everyone to agree to something
  • Use it when you want to involve everyone's brain power to solve a problem such as making a big strategic decision based on some outcomes from an experiment
  • When the stakes are high

The problem with this approach is the sheer amount of communication and time it takes to generate agreement

Tip: Quite often the discussions are rambling and you want to uncover the level of support. In these instances, use an agreement scale see below.
- https://firebasestorage.googleapis.com/v0/b/firescript-577a2.appspot.com/o/imgs%2Fapp%2FZettel-kasten%2F4mRBWm4SKJ.png?alt=media&token=fcfd87dd-43ab-4f31-acc4-55df3e43bc5b

Alternatively, you can use dot voting or ask people to vote with 'number of fingers' as per the scale.