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Collaborative Decision Making in The Workplace
Collaborative Decision Making in The Workplace
Workplace – 101
By Anand Inamdar
December 5, 2018
Work Culture
Collaboration is a buzzword these days. Especially so in the corporate lingo. But rarely
do individuals & companies, pay attention to the basics of collaboration.
Collaborative decision making is at the root of most successful teams in the world. But
what is collaborative decision making, really?
Collaborative decision making occurs when a team of individuals reaches a consensus.
This consensus should be on the best possible solution, chosen from within a set of few
proposed. This sounds time consuming already, doesn’t it? While that may be the case,
it defends against a lot of pitfalls of other processes of decision making. Such as
cognitive bias, trial & error etc. Not only that it promotes an atmosphere of teamwork. All
the individuals involved are more invested in the success of the solution
Collaborative approach works best where work culture supports a high level of
engagement. Freedom to creatively solve problems also encourages seamless
collaboration.
Implementing a collaborative decision-making approach in your organization is hard.
Give your team the freedom to perfect collaboration without constraint of an unrealistic
deadline. With practice and repetition, collaboration will become more streamlined over
time.
Below are a few tried & tested steps to make decision making collaborative.
Choose a facilitator
Most initiatives need a facilitator or a lead to achieve their goals and objectives.
Collaborative decision making is no different. Without committed leadership, the
process is at risk of failure.
This facilitator handles things such as :
Collect data
It is time to collect data to support proposed solutions. Problem is clearly defined in the
first step & then the business impact is deliberated upon.
One mistake that many teams make is to collect any and all data points. Whether they
directly relate to the problem at hand or not. Because too much extraneous data only
clouds the team’s ability to stay within scope.
Team should weigh value of the collected data against the ability to support the
predefined measures of success. Include only data that is critical to the collaborative
decision-making in the evaluation and selection process. The facilitator can assist the
team in focusing on the this effort to support the process goal.
Evaluate alternative solutions and
make a selection
Now the team is finally ready to choose the best solution to the problem. Facilitator can
assist team members in organising their unique thoughts about each proposed solution.
Use tools such as decision matrix.
There is a possibility of not reaching an immediate consensus. In that case it may also
help to complete a cost-benefit analysis. This will aid the team in selecting the solution
that best maps to business objectives.