Problem solving tools

Structured Decision Making: The Six Factor Analysis Method

The Project Post Mortem: A Good Investment

Project Post Mortems

Leadership Boot Camp

Time for an Effective Meeting Intervention

STARS – Matching Strategy to the Situation

STARS – Matching Strategy to the Situation

Tools to Lead Change

RACI – Creating a Responsibility Chart

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There are many different methods and processes for structured decision making. Below we discuss the Six-Factor Analysis method. Six factor Analysis is a method of structured decision making that is neither difficult, nor complex, but can greatly assist at arriving at a higher quality decision, and taking the emotion out of the process. This structured decision making tool is best used when you need to compare several possible solutions or improvements. No structured decision making method will completely remove subjectivity, but the six factor analysis will certainly help.

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:

Effectiveness – How much will the solution improve the situation?
Feasibility – How “do-able” is the solution?
Cost – How much expense will be incurred in implementing the solution?
Time – How soon can the improvement be implemented?
Capability – Does your group have the time, skills, knowledge, and authority to make the improvement?
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.

Every few years I’ll do a job or a project for a governmental organization. Given that I spend about 90% of my time dealing with private sector organizations, I always have to recalibrate when I enter a public sector organization. Most often in government, I experience generally hard-working people frustrated by a bureaucracy resulting in precious little actually being accomplished.

The public sector usually attracts people who are generally risk averse, and as a result, the idea of taking action without perfect information, or allowing oneself to make mistakes and then swiftly correcting them is a hard sell. I seem to spend a ridiculous amount of time just urging people to hurry up and move to action.

In some cases, my problem in private sector organizations is exactly the opposite. Getting people to slow down for just an hour or two to evaluate and document their performance is often branded as heresy. In the case of doing some form of “look-back” after a project or initiative, public sector organizations tend to do a much better job.

There are probably a variety of reasons for this, not the least of which is that public spending is subject to much closer scrutiny, and by a wider variety of interest groups. Nevertheless, private sector organizations would be well advised to take a look at how their cousins in the public sector evaluate and document lessons learned from projects and initiatives.

Most often, the reason given for failing to do a post mortem is, “we don’t have time, besides… everything went well.” When things go very well on a project or initiative is the most important time to do a post mortem. Do you know why things went better than expected? Can you repeat that performance again, or was it just good luck?

To spend an hour or two properly debriefing a project or initiative may be the best investment an organization can make.

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What is a Project Post-Mortem?

A “look-back” from a specific project or course of action
Occurs after the fact
Documents lessons-learned for use in similar future circumstances
Compares expected results with actual results

3 Types of Post-Project Mortems

A full, comprehensive project post mortem for the project or action
Bundle the project with other similar ones and debrief together
No post project review will occur, but it will be a conscious decision rather than just not getting it done

Benefits of a Project Post-Mortem

Documents the wisdom gained through experience, and what could be done differently next time
Understand why things went well (or not), and why
A form of structured feedback
Improves communication

How to Conduct a Project Post Mortem

Decide on scope and who should participate
Establish ground rules, and meeting roles
Conduct Gap Analysis
- Review expected performance or results
- Document actual performance or results
Document action items arising as a result of the PPM

Questions to Ask at a Project Post-Mortem

What are the KPIs for this project?
Where the requirements and goals of this project clear at the beginning?
Did we achieve the business objective?
What went better than expected?
What did not go as well as expected?
How were specific problems overcome?
What changes would be made if we were to do this project over?
Which process or methods caused frustration?
What specific tools or techniques were useful on this project?
Next time we need more/better involvement from…?
Does a smaller group need to go offline and evaluate parts of this project further?

Tips for a Successful Project Post Mortem

Do it as soon as possible after the conclusion of the project or action
Do not assign blame, but rather focus the intent on learning
Talk about team performance
Keep the discussion focused, and do not allow digression to related issues
Look for an 80% solution

3 Things to Remember about Project Post Mortems

Don’t let the project post-mortem become bigger than the project it was meant to assess
Take the time to do it well
Make it a learning exercise – don’t make it about personal blame

Find out all about the Wily Manager Leadership Boot Camp:

Why bother?
What it’s about
Who should participate
How it works
What’s covered

Listen to the ‘Leadership Boot Camp’ Podcast:

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Leadership Boot Camp Podcast Slides

Download the Leadership Boot Camp Brochure:

Wily Manager Leadership Boot Camp Brochure

If the last meeting you went to sucked badly, you are in good company. A survey of over 1000 North American managers indicated that on average they spend about 17 hours per week in meetings. Of that considerable portion of their work-week, they deemed that one-third of that time was wasted.

The economic implications of this are staggering. If you multiply 6 hours times the hourly rate of those managers times the number of managers in the economy, you begin to see a number with a whole bunch of zeros behind it. Even in your own organization this calculation could easily total in the millions of dollars every year.

More selfishly, ask yourself what you would do if you had an extra six hours every week. Could you work more reasonable hours? Perhaps you could get to those things you know are important but are constantly displaced by the urgent.

This got us to ask the question, “if meetings are systemically bad, and they cost that much what can be done?”

First of all, do not accept that meetings have to be bad. We all seem resigned that we have to write-off a significant portion of our week to something we know is useless. Demand more of yourself, and of your organization.

Second – be part of the solution. This is your problem to solve. Even if you do not chair the meeting, you can raise questions as to how effective they are. Your complacency will get you into more pointless meetings.

Third – insist on a structure. The engineers and accountants always get a bad rap for being anal retentive. While you may want to avoid such people at cocktail parties, invite them to help fix your meetings. A bit of discipline will exponentially improve the value of your meetings.

Finally – figure out what meetings are costing you. What is the cost to the organization by the time they pay a fully burdened labour cost. What is the cost to you if meetings are causing you to work longer hours and give up your leisure time. Profit-driven organizations are usually good a containing costs when they have to. Get them to contain the cost of their meetings.

Then you’ll have more time to read our blog, and download YouTube clips. Here’s one from John Cleese – for those who love British humour.

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Effective leaders strategically change their leadership behaviors depending on the type of business situation they encounter. They make decisions and take actions differently in different situations. Here’s how they do it:

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Start-Up‘, then:

Degree of Urgency: HIGH
More Learning or Doing: DOING
Offence or Defence: OFFENCE
Tough Calls: MAKE NOW
First Action: ASSEMBLE TEAM & RESOURCES

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Turnaround‘, then:

Degree of Urgency: VERY HIGH
More Learning or Doing: DOING
Offence or Defence: DEFENCE
Tough Calls: MAKE RIGHT NOW
First Action: CUT TO DEFENDABLE CORE THEN REBUILD

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Accelerated Growth‘, then:

Degree of Urgency: HIGH
More Learning or Doing: DOING
Offence or Defence: OFFENCE
Tough Calls: LEARN THEN ACT
First Action: LEARN QUICKLY, PERMIT MISTAKES

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Realignment‘, then:

Degree of Urgency: MODERATE
More Learning or Doing: LEARNING
Offence or Defence: OFFENCE
Tough Calls: LEARN THEN ACT
First Action: STUDY THEN REDIRECT RESOURCES

If the business situation can be described as a ‘Sustaining Success‘, then:

Degree of Urgency: LOW
More Learning or Doing: LEARNING
Offence or Defence: DEFENCE
Tough Calls: LEARN THEN ACT
First Action: STUDY THEN CREATE URGENCY FOR CHANGE

For more information about the STARS Model, see Michael Watkins’ book, The First 90 Days.

Different business situations require different managerial behaviors. In this podcast, find out how to make decisions and take action in a way that is appropriate for different situations.

Listen to the STARS Podcast:

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STARS Podcast Slides

Take a look at the ‘STARS‘ Cheat Sheet

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Three important things to remember when you are leading change

1. As individuals experience change, each one will deal with change differently. In general though, people move through three predictable phases when confronted with change:

Stage One: ‘Endings’ – anger, denial, resistance, mourning

Stage Two: ‘Exploration’ – chaos, turmoil, hope

Stage Three: ‘New beginnings’ – new routines/methods, optimism, stability

You should expect employees to move through various emotions….even when things are going well!

2. Resistance arises when people realize that change is difficult

3. Your role is to keep people on track despite obstacles

Communicating to different personality types

We are each a ‘creature of habit’ and tend to act consistently over time and in different situations.

Various measurement systems can help you understand preferred styles of behavior – both your own, and those of others. For example:

Myers Briggs Type Indicator
DiSC
Insights

These personality profiles categorize how an individual prefers to:

Direct their energy
Process information
Make decisions
Manage himself in the world
Deal with conflict
Communicate
Work in a team environment

To communicate effectively during change, it is critical to tailor your messages to the personality preferences of the individuals you are dealing with.

Dealing with Resistance to Change

You should expect resistance to change – this is normal! As a leader, you can minimize resistance to change if you:

Provide focus
Proactively share information
Acknowledge resistance when it occurs
Tow the line
Involve employees where possible
Repeat key messages over and over
Listen
Validate good work done in the past

Sometimes, however, you will encounter continued resistance to change. When confronted with difficult behavior, you can manage it if you:

Be aware of the impact of the other person’s behavior on you
Identify the type of behavior, and strategize a response before reacting
Understand the root cause
Determine if the conversation can continue right now
Avoid public showdowns
Focus on the behavior, not the person
Don’t make excuses for the person
Do something! – Don’t ignore the behavior

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What is a RACI Responsibility Chart?

RACI is an acronym for the four major headings in a responsibility chart:

Responsible – this position does the work to ensure that the action is completed
Accountable – this position is ultimately responsible for ensuring completion of a function, activity or decision, but may delegate responsibility to another. Only one position should be accountable for every action or decision
Consulted – This position is involved prior to a decision or action taking place
Informed – This position is told of an outcome of an activity or decision afterwards

RACI Responsibility Charting Guidelines

Focus on the position, not on the individual currently occupying the position
Ensure the level of detail is appropriate to the positions on the RACI Responsibility Chart. Organizations should have cascading RACIs from the senior team down to the individual contributor level
The RACI Responsibility Chart should be revisited and tested regularly as business conditions change
The first RACI Responsibility Chart will be an iterative process, and may not 100% accurate at first. Further refinement is encouraged
Place accountability (A) and responsibility (R) at the lowest feasible level
There can be only one accountability (A) per activity
Minimize the number of Consults (C) and Informs (I)
Avoid listing mundane activities like ‘attend meetings’

Horizontal & Vertical Analysis of a RACI Responsibility Chart

Once the RACI responsibility chart has been populated, it is important to review and analyze the work to ensure that the tasks, decisions and functions will be properly executed. View the chart horizontally to ensure that each action or decision is properly supported. View the chart vertically to ensure that workload is properly distributed amongst a team or work group.

Using a RACI Responsibility Chart to enhance or validate job descriptions

After a RACI has been conducted with a group, it is wise to cross-check the data on the RACI responsibility chart with what is written in the job description. In some cases, items from the job description should be noted on the RACI. responsibility chart. Most often Accountabilities and Responsibilities from the RACI responsibility chart are used to update job descriptions.

Using a RACI Responsibility Chart to enhance KPIs or Scorecards

A good use of the output of a RACI responsibility chart is to note what KPIs, data and other management information is required for an incumbent to successfully execute his or her accountabilities and responsibilities. In many cases the RACI responsibility chart can provide a solid guide as to what should be on a scorecard for the positions featured in the RACI chart.

Effectiveness25%

Feasibility15%

Capability10%

Enthusiasm10%

The RACI Responsibility Charting topic bundle includes:

RACI Responsibility Charting Cheat Sheet (pdf)
RACI Responsibility Charting Booklet (pdf) containing:
- In-Depth Topic Overview
- RACI Horizontal and Vertical Analysis Check-Sheet
- RACI Job Description Template
- Recommended Resources – where to find out even more about RACI Responsibility Charting

RACI Responsibility Charting Example from the Oil and Gas Industry (Excel)
RACI Responsibility Charting Presentation – use this if you want to roll it out in your organization (Powerpoint)
Easy-print versions of the Wily Manager Tools contained in the RACI Responsibility Charting Booklet (pdf)
RACI Responsibility Charting Podcast (mp3)
RACI Responsibility Charting Podcast slides (Powerpoint)

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