McKinsey and Company have recently published an interesting article around Three Keys to Faster, Better Decision Making. It follows on from an article written about the fact that more data, better analytics and clearer understanding of how to mitigate cognitive biases mean that it is a “great time to be a decision maker but it was also one of the worst times because organisational dynamics and digital decision-making dysfunctions are causing growing levels of frustration among senior leaders”. The most recent McKinsey article is based on a survey of more than 1,200 managers across a range of global companies and highlighted frustration with broken decision-making processes, the slow pace of decision-making deliberations, and an uneven quality of decision-making outcomes. McKinsey advocate categorising decision-making types and organising different processes around them for faster, better decision. Two years ago they identified four decision categories, (three matter most to senior leaders). Big-bet decisions (such as a possible acquisition), Cross-cutting decisions (such as a pricing decision) Delegated decisions (frequent but low risk) and Ad-hoc decisions. The key is that many issues needing decision making rise up much higher in companies than they should.
