Successful Decision Making in a Week: Teach Yourself

Making decisions just got easier
You make decisions all the time in everyday life: what to eat, what clothes to wear, with whom you spend your leisure time and how you spend your money. In your business life you are also constantly making decisions: the different activities you - and your business colleagues - need to carry out in order to arrive at a sound decision. At work, you are deciding how to spend your time, which emails to answer, what subjects to raise at a meeting, when is the best time for your company to launch a new product, what companies you should invest in, what you are not willing to compromise on in negotiations, what policies to develop and how best to market your products and services. Some of these decisions may have already been made for you by other colleagues, usually those above you in your company or organization, and your task is merely to implement them. In other matters, however, you can exercise some control over the actual decision-making process.

Each of the seven chapters in Decision Making In A Week covers a different aspect of the decision-making process:
- Sunday: Know your aims clearly. What are you actually making a decision about?
- Monday: Collect relevant information. Consider all the relevant factors as you gather the information you need.
- Tuesday: Identify different options. Widen your thinking, challenge assumptions and consider creative solutions.
- Wednesday: Work effectively as a team. Make decisions as a group so that colleagues will feel motivated to implement the decision.
- Thursday: Evaluate different options. Set objective criteria against which you can examine the various options you have identified.
- Friday: Make an informed decision and implement it, communicating it well to all the relevant parties.
- Saturday: Review the decision carefully, evaluating the whole decision-making process, noting what went well and learning from mistakes.

Martin Manser, author of Successful Project Management in a Week and Introduction to Management in a Week, has been leading seminars on management skills (eg time management and running effective meetings) and business communication for national and international companies and organisations since 2001. He has led courses at the London College of Communication (University of the Arts, London), CAPITA Business Services Limited, Department for Education, Network Rail, South West Trains, SPIE Matthew Hall (AMEC).