How do you evaluate decision making?

Making decisions for your small business might seem to require wisdom beyond your capabilities. However, if you are methodical about your decision-making process, there is a better chance that your resulting determinations will lead to success. To ensure that your decisions benefit your company, properly evaluating their effectiveness will help you know if you should stay on track or make subsequent changes.

Pinpoint the Issue

1. As a business owner, you are faced with a variety of decisions every day. Some are important and affect the course of your company's future, while others are not as vital but must be acknowledged. For minor issues, quick thinking and experience can direct your response. However, matters needing more thought and discernment should be closely analyzed. You must pinpoint the issue requiring a decision. You may have found a problem that needs resolving, but upon closer analysis, you've identified an underlying situation needing to be addressed. For example, if a customer complains about inadequate service, it may not be the fault of your employee but rather the poor implementation of a company policy.

Determine Solutions

1. Once you have adequately identified the decision that must be made, determine if the solution will be isolated to one situation or become a company-wide policy. If your decision will affect employees and customers through comprehensive changes in systems or processes, ask for input from management. Make a list of the advantages and disadvantages of viable decisions. Project the impact of the decision to your sales, revenues and profits. Even minor decisions that are not far-reaching should be considered carefully in case implementation affects other areas of business.

Implement Decision

1. You may be tempted to implement an important decision before conducting an analysis of its merits. Your insight as an experienced small business owner can give you confidence that you are making the right decision without thinking of the ramifications. Instead of being hasty, carefully consider all aspects of your decision and its application. If you are changing a company policy, notify your employees and meet with them to answer questions and discuss the implementation strategy. If customers are affected, send letters and post a notice on your website explaining the changes and benefits involved. Be confident in your decision so others will not question its validity.

Evaluate Effectiveness

1. Perform online surveys and ask customers to answers questions to evaluate the effectiveness of your decisions. Document workplace data if your decision involves employees, manufacturing, or processes and systems. Expect complaints from customers and employees. Determine if they do not like changes in general and eventually will adapt to them or if you have made a mistake that needs further analysis to resolve. Don't overlook serious feedback that can have a negative impact on your profits, but be open to suggestions and continue the process of decision-making and implementation until all departments run smoothly.

A variety of groups may be established within the governance structure in order to advise on the evaluation. Evaluation decisions are often made by a steering committee, with representatives from different stakeholder groups. An expert or technical reference group or an advisor with specific expertise might provide targeted advice. A diverse range of stakeholders with different perspectives might also be consulted about the scope of the evaluation or on specific issues such as the accuracy of the program logic or the interpretation of findings.

Control may be centralized in a specific manager or committee or it may be shared by a working party involving representatives from many different stakeholders.

It is important to be clear about the roles and responsibilities of steering committees and other stakeholders. They might have the following roles:

• Advise – review material and make suggestions to others who make the decisions
• Recommend – review material and suggestions and make recommendations to others who make the decisions
• Decide – have final control over decisions in the evaluation

Options

Types of structures

• Advisory group: forming a group to provide advice on evaluations without making any actual decisions.
• Citizen Juries: using representatives from the wider community to make decisions about possible approaches or options.
• Steering group: establishing a group to make decisions about an evaluation.

Ways of exploring issues

• Formal meeting processes: guidance on processes for running formal meetings.
• Informal meeting processes:  a conversation between an evaluator and a key stakeholder that is not conducted in a formal way but is still seeking the same outcomes.
• Round robin: a structured process for generating ideas in a group.
• Six Hats Thinking: promoting holistic and lateral thinking in decision-making and evaluation by using different roles. 

Ways of making decisions

• Consensus decision making: decision making processes that aims to find decisions which everyone can accept.
• Hierarchical decision making: making decisions on the basis of formal positions of authority
• Majority decision making: basing decisions which have the support of the majority of the decision makers.

Approaches

• Participatory evaluation: involving key stakeholders in the evaluation process.

What is evaluative decision

How would you evaluate the importance of a decision?

What factors do you evaluate before making a decision?