Frankenstein Decisions

It used to drive me crazy.  Busting my buns on another PowerPoint Presentation on a new strategy/project/or idea.    I’d done my diligence . I’d told a story using some data (check out our previous blog post here). I went to dazzle them with my presentation skills and present my options and recommendation, and here’s what I started to hear:

“I like recommendation 1, with a bit of recommendation 2.”

“Can you do recommendation 2, but with recommendation 1’s budget and timelines?”

“Did you consider a hybrid option?”

As a real “doer”, this frustrated me as an employee, and I interpreted it as an inability to take a risk, or low risk tolerance on behalf of my executive leaders.  And worst of all, it wasn’t efficient use of my time, or theirs.

It’s ALIVE!

Success (including employee engagement) in organizations today is hinging more and more on the ability of leaders to optimize operations by making quality decisions quickly from a data rich environment.

As a process improvement specialist, I also aimed to ensure that my options were efficient, and these hybrid or Frankenstein options were’t the most efficient solution -much like Frankenstein himself – big, burly, and slow moving.

While the individual solutions may have been better, faster, or cheaper (or hopefully all three) – the hybrids were unattractive, difficult to put together, and didn’t yield the best results – even if they were technically feasible, or “alive”.

3 Tips to eliminating Frankenstein and Promoting Efficient Decision Making

1. State  your case upfront. The solutions and alternatives your are recommending are standalone.  Use data to support this, but demonstrate right at the outset that it has been evaluated as an option. Or create a hybrid option to present that IS efficient.
2. Make sure your data is accurate and timely.  Encourage to drive a data driven culture forward buy using data to build your case.
3. Be collaborative.   Bring as many people into your story during to development, so that people aren’t tempted to make a monster mash of your hard work.

Do you have a Frankenstein experience? Give us a shout via Twitter @whiteboardcons using#betterfastercheaper or email us at info@whiteboardconsulting.ca/staging.

Until next week,

Nicole