What Are The Five Steps To Execute Effective Decision Making Process?

The work of a manager is hampered by constant decision making, which does not always occur in the best conditions. There is a working method that provides five keys to facilitate this task.

Decisions become particularly difficult when they contain uncertainty when they present various alternatives, when several parts or subjects are involved, or when they deal with interpersonal issues.

The lack of information is a factor that creates uncertainty and therefore difficult decisions, but some managers find that they never have enough information to make a decision, which means that this fear is caused by insecurity caused by the risk accepted with the decision.

In any case, managers must make decisions whether they have all the conditions they require to carry out that act with conviction or not.

To try to solve these difficulties, a five-step technique is proposed. For this, it is necessary to keep in mind the idea that decision making is a process. One of the most remarkable discoveries of business thinkers is that undertaking a process is crucial to obtaining positive results. 

The planning, organization, and distribution of energy and time is much more likely to be effective than talent or working long hours. If an effective process is adopted and the team members are taught how to use it, the result will be gradually improved.

It would be easy to think that the mechanical performance of these steps automatically leads to making the best decision, but it is not. This process helps to a large extent to organize the hard work of deciding, but there will always be insurmountable obstacles, the result of the eventuality, that may complicate this process.

It will be necessary to be flexible to adapt the process to the emergence of unforeseen events.

Also Read: Financial Decisions That Lead To Successful Organizations

1. Establish A Context For Success

The first step is to create an enabling and effective decision for making the best decisions. A context that helps decisions is one that manages to eliminate, at least in part, the subjectivities and other habitual contaminating factors of a structure of people. 

This implies, in addition to refining personal preferences not supported by professional criteria, carefully selecting the people who will participate in the decision-making process. 

Likewise, it will be necessary to observe which is the most appropriate physical space for this process, a place that should encourage creative thinking, communication, and deliberation.

2. Present The Problem Appropriately

The second step in this process will consist of knowing exhaustively the details of the situation on which the decision has to be made: the nature of the problem, the people involved, the duration of that situation, the consequences it has caused so far and the solutions that have been applied to date. The right decisions cannot be made if the problem has not been clearly stated from the beginning.

3. Generate Alternatives

The next step to take is to propose an acceptable number of possible alternatives. If several possibilities are not presented, there will be no decision to be made, nor will the conflict resolution entail any difficulties.

since the decision to choose one of the alternatives and discard the others is what generates the doubt of knowing with certainty if one is getting that choice right, that is, if the chosen alternative is the best of the proposals. 

This step in the process requires a lot of creativity and ingenuity and must be fruitful enough. This stage should not be concluded without having managed to gather a significant number of quality possibilities.

4. Evaluate These Alternatives

Once a realistic set of alternatives has been achieved, the feasibility of each must be evaluated. There are many specialized managemnt tools for this, including some software versions.

5. Choose The Best Alternative

After having progressed through the process throughout the initial phases and having devoted the necessary attention and care to each of the steps, each member of the decision-making team will be able to present their individual opinion individually, and then exchange points of view between all of them and create a forum for debate around the best alternatives.

In this way, the advantages and disadvantages of the alternatives best valued by the members of the group will be considered, which will enrich decision-making, since it will not be subject only to the personal judgment of a manager, but will have been analyzed from the perspective of Different and complementary professional profiles.