Mind Tools Newsletter 161: A Good Decision - Every Time!

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You've received this newsletter because you subscribed to it using our double opt-in sign-up process. To unsubscribe, just click the link at the bottom of this email. Alternatively, if you're not already a subscriber, you can sign up here. Contents Decision Making Manager Dependency Getting Noticed Managing Upwards Organizing People Delivering Happiness How Well Do You Delegate? Building Rapport Talent Management Managing Part-Time Staff A Final Note At Mind Tools... About Mind Tools Membership Corporate Services Tool Explorer Contact Us Mind Tools Newsletter 161 - August 31, 2010 A Good Decision - Every Time! Many of us make important decisions every day. But how good is your decision making? Do you make the best decision every time? Have you even thought about how you make decisions? We've got a multitude of decision making tools and resources in the Career Excellence Club, and in this week's newsletter, we're looking at one of simplest and most powerful decision making techniques - Grid Analysis. Find out how to use it to weigh up several different factors quickly, so that you can make the best decision. This newsletter also looks at making sure you get noticed in your organization, and shows you how you can train your team to be more independent in our article on preventing manager dependency. Enjoy the articles! James Manktelow and Rachel Thompson MindTools.com - Essential skills for an excellent career! Featured Resources at Mind Tools Grid Analysis Making a Good Decision Quickly and Effectively All Readers Learn how to make good decisions by weighing up the relative importance of different factors. All Readers' Skill-Builder Preventing Manager Dependency Teaching Your Team to Be More Independent All Readers Does your team depend on you too much? Learn how to train team members to rely less on you to get things done - and more on themselves. All Readers' Skill-Builder Getting Noticed Staying "Visible" at Work All Readers Is your hard work overlooked by your boss or colleagues? Find out how to get noticed and stay in their thoughts, so you can keep moving toward your goals. All Readers' Skill-Builder How Well Do You Delegate? Discover Ways to Achieve More All Readers Assigning work to others is an important part of getting things done efficiently. Take our test, and find out how to improve your delegation skills. All Readers' Featured Favorite   ... And from the Career Excellence Club Managing Upwards Club Members Learn how to develop the skills you need to work effectively with your boss, and other important people in your organization. All Members' Bite-Sized Training™ Organizing Disorganized People Motivating Your Team to Change Club Members Do you work with people who are disorganized? If so, discover some effective strategies to help them organize themselves - so that your life can be easier. All Members' Skill-Builder Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion and Purpose, by Tony Hsieh Club Members This book, by Zappos CEO Tony Hseih, looks at how promoting happiness within your organization can produce passion and engagement - from employees, and from customers. Find out more about it here. Premium Members' Book Insight Building Rapport in Coaching Developing Mutual Understanding and Trust Club Members Building trust and rapport is vital for developing effective relationships. Find out how you can build and maintain rapport with the people you're coaching. All Members' Coaching Clinic One Page Talent Management: Eliminating Complexity, Adding Value, by Marc Effron and Miriam Ort Club Members This book looks at how to create a talent management plan that's simple and easy to use. Learn more about it here. Premium Members' Book Insight Managing Part-Time Staff Strategies for Your Flexible Workforce Club Members Find out how to deal with the challenges of managing a team that includes part-time staff. All Members' Skill-Builder Editors' Choice Article Grid Analysis Making a Decision by Weighing Up Different Factors Also known as Decision Matrix Analysis, Pugh Matrix Analysis, and Multi-Attribute Utility Theory (MAUT) Imagine that your boss has put you in charge of taking on a new outsourced IT supplier. You've already identified several different suppliers, and you now need to decide which one to use. You could decide to go with the low-cost option. But you don't want to make your decision on cost alone - factors such as contract length, underlying technology, and service levels need to be taken into consideration. So how can you make sure you make the best decision, while taking all of these different factors into account? Use Grid Analysis to make better decisions. ©iStockphoto/cogal Grid Analysis is a useful technique to use for making a decision. It's particularly powerful where you have a number of good alternatives to choose from, and many different factors to take into account. This makes it a great technique to use in almost any important decision where there isn't a clear and obvious preferred option. Being able to use Grid Analysis means that you can take decisions confidently and rationally, at a time when other people might be struggling to make a decision. How to Use the Tool Grid Analysis works by getting you to list your options as rows on a table, and the factors you need consider as columns. You then score each option/factor combination, weight this score by the relative importance of the factor, and add these scores up to give an overall score for each option. While this sounds complex, this technique is actually quite easy to use. Here's a step-by-step guide with an example. Start by downloading our free worksheet. Then work through these steps: List all of your options as the row labels on the table, and list the factors that you need to consider as the column headings. For example, if you were buying a new laptop computer, factors to consider might be cost, dimensions, and hard disk size. Next, work your way down the columns of your table, scoring each option for each of the factors in your decision. Score each option from 0 (poor) to 5 (very good). Note that you do not have to have a different score for each option - if none of them are good for a particular factor in your decision, then all options should score 0. The next step is to work out the relative importance of the factors in your decision. Show these as numbers from, say, 0 to 5, where 0 means that the factor is absolutely unimportant in the final decision, and 5 means that it is very important. (It's perfectly acceptable to have factors with the same importance.) Tip: These values may be obvious. If they are not, then use a technique such as Paired Comparison Analysis to estimate them. Now multiply each of your scores from step 2 by the values for relative importance of the factor that you calculated in step 3. This will give you weighted scores for each option/factor combination. Finally, add up these weighted scores for each of your options. The option that scores the highest wins! Example: A windsurfing enthusiast is about to replace his car. He needs one that not only carries a board and sails, but also one that will be good for business travel. He has always loved open-topped sports cars, but no car he can find is good for all three things. His options are: An SUV/4x4, hard topped vehicle. A comfortable "'family car." A station wagon/estate car. A convertible sports car. Factors that he wants to consider are: Cost. Ability to carry a sail board safely. Ability to store sails and equipment securely. Comfort over long distances. Fun! Look, and build quality. Firstly he draws up the table shown in Figure 1, and scores each option by how well it satisfies each factor: Figure 1: Example Grid Analysis Showing Unweighted Assessment of How Each Type of Car Satisfies Each Factor Factors: Cost Board Storage Comfort Fun Look Total Weights:               Sports Car 1  0  0  1  3  3   SUV/4x4 0  3  2  2  1  1   Family Car 2  2  1  3  0  0   Station Wagon 2  3  3  3  0  1   Next he decides the relative weights for each of the factors. He multiplies these by the scores already entered, and totals them. This is shown in Figure 2: Figure 2: Example Grid Analysis Showing Weighted Assessment of How Each Type of Car Satisfies Each Factor Factors: Cost Board Storage Comfort Fun Look Total Weights:  4  5  1  2  3  4   Sports Car 4  0  0  2  9  12  27 SUV/4x4 0  15  2  4  3  4  28 Family Car  8  10  1  6  0  0  25 Station Wagon  8  15  3  6  0  4  36 This gives an interesting result: Despite its lack of fun, a station wagon is the best choice. Windsurfing really matters to him! Key Points Grid Analysis helps you to decide between several options, where you need to take many different factors into account. To use the tool, lay out your options as rows on a table. Set up the columns to show the factors you need to consider. Score each choice for each factor using numbers from 0 (poor) to 5 (very good), and then allocate weights to show the importance of each of these factors. Multiply each score by the weight of the factor, to show its contribution to the overall selection. Finally add up the total scores for each option. The highest scoring option will be the best option. Note: Grid Analysis is the simplest form of Multiple Criteria Decision Analysis (MCDA), also known as Multiple Criteria Decision Aid or Multiple Criteria Decision Management (MCDM). Sophisticated MCDA can involve highly complex modelling of different potential scenarios, using advanced mathematics. A lot of business decision making, however, is based on approximate or subjective data. Where this is the case, Grid Analysis may be all that's needed. A Final Note from James Grid Analysis isn't the only method of making a decision where multiple factors need to be taken into account, but it's quick and simple, and it's very effective. Give it a try the next time you have a difficult decision to make - I'm sure that you'll be pleased if you do! Next time, we're looking at how to be more productive when working from home. We're also tackling fear of failure, and looking at how overcoming it can help you be more successful. And don't forget - you can also keep up-to-date with the latest from Mind Tools on Facebook and Twitter. Best wishes James Manktelow email us Mind Tools Essential Skills for an Excellent Career! Privacy Policy: Mind Tools will treat your email address with complete respect and will not circulate it to any third party. If you are not already a subscriber to this newsletter and you would like to be one, you can sign up at http://www.mindtools.com/subscribe.htm If you have enjoyed this issue, please do email it on to your friends and co-workers. To find out about new tools on the Mind Tools site the moment they're uploaded, click here to subscribe to the Mind Tools RSS feed (you'll need an RSS newsreader installed). We welcome appropriate reprinting and reuse of Mind Tools material, but , you must get our permission first! 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