Decision Making

How to make efficient decisions on daily delivery workflow

The What

How do we make quick and good decisions on the daily delivery process? Push the decision-making to the possible lowest level.

Cloud Native Transformation Practical Patterns for Innovation

The How

Communicate the vision

• Why we are here and what are we trying to achieve as a team? Get it super clear.

• Focus more on the why and less on the what

• Provide more context to the team which helps them make efficient decisions.

Alignment

• Hard work in the right direction.

• Catch up (sync / async) with your Product Manager regularly, repeatedly, and frequently.

• Align the tech roadmap with the product roadmap‌.

Autonomy

• Be more situational and give your direct reports more space to grow

• Don’t be prescriptive unless you absolutely have to, and fix it as soon as possible.

Direction

• Ensure the direction is correct, otherwise, all that hard work goes in a wrong direction

• Regular catch up with your Product Manager and get the direction aligned

• Have a tech roadmap and fit into the product roadmap

Delegate & Monitor

Regular check-ins, but how often? It depends on Task Relevant Maturity

https://www.hostinger.com/blog/task-relevant-maturity

• Start small and slowly build the trust

• Clear ownership

• Clarify goals and success metrics

• Proactive updates from direct reports are needed

• Regular check-ins

• At the end of the day, it is all your accountability

🔴 Red Flags

• Have unnecessary meetings for small decisions. // Can you make it async?

• Look for absolute broader consensus for small decisions‌. // Unnecessary.

• Aim for perfect decisions. // Perfectionism is killing your team.

📜 Tips

• Use frameworks for the decision-making process, e.g., DACI

• Think about ROI. How big the decision is and how much it cost to make that decision.

• There is more than one way to make a decision. Voting is just one of them.

🕳️ Pitfalls

• Escalate every decision ⇒ micro-management

• Delegate without monitoring ⇒ unexpected failures

https://www.cnpatterns.org/organization-culture/decide-closest-to-the-action