April 24, 2020
Reducing Decisions
Decisions Reduce Repeatability & Dependability
It is typical of processes to have many decision points. Sometimes customers make them, sometimes they are made by employees. But every time a decision is made, there is the possibility of making the wrong one. It could be a mistake, it could be a bias, it could be an error in judgment. But it’s just the mistakes, it’s also that you can have really good decisions that are not consistent with each other. There is a predictability and certainty in a process without decisions. One can rely on the outcome, which simplifies all processes downstream. System reliability can be measured and accessed, and most importantly steadily improved.
Decisions Increase Time & Effort
Each decision takes a process out of an automated route and halts it while a person makes a calculation and comes up with a solution. This extra time and effort slow processes down. In today’s ultrafast and demanding world, people are looking for faster and easier solutions. The difference can cost you your business.
An Example
Any decision can be a source of error. Let me give you an example from my own experience, from way way back from high school. Every day I would collect the books that were necessary to do my homework. What I found was this process was error-prone. I would forget books that were necessary for me to complete my homework. There could have been many solutions to this problem, creating more complex checklists for example. My solution was simpler, I just took all my books home every day. For a few extra pounds I had reduced the number of decisions I had to make. I also reduced the time spent sorting books and eliminated an error source. Plus I achieved a reduction of mental energy. All people experience decision fatigue. After I started doing this I found that many of my fellow classmates followed my lead and started moving all their books back and forth.
Balancing
It is typical for engineers and designers to complicate processes, the thinking is that more is better. But product managers must be very conscientious. Eliminating decisions is often the hardest and smartest thing a manager can do. Often there are trade-offs involved in eliminating decisions. Simplification often reduces capability.
Written by Scott creator of Valtrace.
