Objective, transparent decision making …

As an executive and consultant, I’ve run into many points in my life where I’ve had to make a complicated decision based on a number of competing objectives. In most instances, I can make a decision fairly quickly after doing my research or evaluating my options.

In some situations, a quick decision isn’t practical, possible or best. Have you ever had situations where:

• It’s not clear which option would be best?
• A decision is politically charged (i.e. Transparency is essential, because the stakes are high and everyone concerned wants to know the decision is fair)?
• Someone important — perhaps a family member or client — wants to know you’re being professional and being through in your decision (or recommendation)?

Well, I have just the thing! I call it a “Comparison-based Decision Matrix”. It’s a simple, great looking, spreadsheet that enables you to compare competing options on an apples-to-apples basis. The spreadsheet takes the difficulty out of making a decision, although creates a new difficulty: figuring out what the factors in your decision really are, and assigning weights to those factors.

Download the spreadsheet. It contains a simple decision as an example: “How should we process Credit Cards today?” It compares three possibilities.

How to use the Comparison-based Decision Matrix

1. What is the issue to be decided? Put this in B6. In my example, I have “How should we process Credit Cards today?”
2. What are the decision factors that influence your decision? Nothing is too small or unimportant. Put it all down. Insert additional lines, as you need them. In my example, I have “Best for Customer Satisfaction,” “Cheapest Long-Term” and “Cheapest Short-Term” amongst others.
3. Now comes the hard part: assign weights to each of your factors. Some are more important than others, so you need to weigh each factor against the others. Give each a weight, so that all your weights total up to 100. The spreadsheet will help you. If one factor is weighted 20 and another 10, the one weighted 20 is twice as important as the one weighing 10.
4. Put in the options. In my example, I have three. Replace those with your options. If you one have two options, ignore the third column of options. If you have more than three options, I’ve put instructions in the spreadsheet on how you can increase the number of options. (It requires you to insert a couple of columns and copy some formulas).
5. Rate each option against each other for each factor, with 3 being the best and 1 being the worst. In my example, let’s look at “Best for Customer Satisfaction”. Option A is the worst option, so it gets a “1″. Option C is the best options, so it gets a “3″.
6. Finally, look at the final score for each option. The one with the highest score wins!

It’s actually a lot easier than it sounds. Try it out, and see how it works.

Ideas for the Comparison-based Decision Matrix

This can be a tool for a number of really interesting decisions:

• Selecting the best candidate for an open employment position.
• Selecting the best political candidate, when trying to determine who to vote for.
• My personal favorite: I’d love, love, love to see a political figure (i.e. such as a senator, member of congress, or other legislator) use such a tool in determine what bills, statutes and other laws they vote on. If nothing else, to specifically enumerate what they stand for (i.e. what’s on the list of factors), and how those factors weighed into their decision on whether to support or reject a certain piece of legislation. Could you imagine such a world??!?
• Selecting whether to buy or lease your next vehicle, as well as what vehicle to select.
• Any decision you feel you run the risk of making a decision based on emotions.
• A career move.
• Selecting which university you wish to obtain your degree.
• And thousands of other decisions, when you have more than one or two factors, with multiple options.

Good luck to you and your decisions! If you hear of any politicians, whether they be Republican, Democrat or independent; conservative or liberal; at the federal, state or local level; that uses such a method to introduce transparency into their decision making, PLEASE let me know about it!