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Step 1 – Brainstorm Options

The first step in structured decision making is to develop a list of several possible solutions or improvements to your question or situation.  Brainstorming is most effective when ideas are generated without judgment.  A structured decision making process will help you to judge your ideas afterwards.  For now, just get down as many ideas as you can relevant to your situation.

Step 2 – Decide on the Criteria by Which to Evaluate Ideas

Regardless of what process you choose for structured decision making, it is important to adjust the criteria to suit your individual situation.  These will vary widely, based on the circumstances, but here are the six generic factors in this structured decision making process:

1. Effectiveness – How much will the solution improve the situation?
2. Feasibility – How “do-able” is the solution?
3. Cost – How much expense will be incurred in implementing the solution?
4. Time – How soon can the improvement be implemented?
5. Capability – Does your group have the time, skills, knowledge, and authority to make the improvement?
6. Enthusiasm – how enthusiastic are your team and other stakeholders about the improvement?

Again, any structured decision making process is best used when the criteria are added to or adjusted appropriately to the situation.

Step 3 – Weight Your Criteria

Not all criteria in a structured decision making process should be valued equally.  For example, in your situation, cost may be of paramount concern, and therefore may be weighted heavier than the others.

Consider the weights of your criteria in terms of percentage.  For example:

Effectiveness              25%

Feasibility                    15%

Cost                             30%

Time                            10%

Capability                    10%

Enthusiasm                 10%

If you are having difficulty determining weights for your structured decision making process, you can compare each criteria to every other one individually, putting a check mark beside the most important one in each comparison, and then counting up the checkmarks to arrive at a percentage.

Step 4 – Put Your Solutions and Criteria in a Table, and Score

To make your structured decision making process easy to use, put your criteria as column headings, with your possible solutions or alternatives in the left hand column:

Work your way across the table assigning a score to each empty box.  You can score each one on whatever scale you choose, as long as you use the same scale.  We would suggest to assign a score of 1 – 5, with 5 being the highest or best score.

Next multiply your score times the weight to come up with a number for each criteria of each option.  When you add all the weighted scores together, you come up with a total score for that option.  The option with the highest score should become what you move to action on.

HINT:  A structured decision making process such as this is much easier if it is done on a spreadsheet that can automatically do the math for you.

Become a Wily Manager member and get instant access to even more information about Structured Decision Making.  And don’t forget to sign up for our FREE Management Cheat Sheet Collection

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