Decisions: How Looping Back Helps

When groups make decisions about complex questions, they can sometimes approach the problem in a beginning-to-ending fashion that threatens the quality of the outcomes. For instance, in one typical pattern, the group brainstorms alternatives, ranks those alternatives, explores those they regard as the most favorable, ranks them again, and then finally, makes a choice. We use linear patterns like these for everything from hiring to firing, from investing to downsizing — nearly everything.

Just one thing. It doesn't always yield good results.

When the time required for a decision is much shorter than the time scale of changes in the environment, linear decision processes work well. But when the environment — or our knowledge of it — changes rapidly compared to the speed of decision making, the decision makers are always working with old news. Their conclusions don't keep pace with reality.

At least two important sources of change threaten the decision process.

Changes in the environment

When the environment changes after the decision process begins, the process can reach a conclusion that was consistent with the pre-change environment, but which no longer fits the environment's new configuration.

Changes in the group's ability to perceive

Groups often acquire new capability during the decision process. They learn, or they abandon old prejudices, or they acquire new members, or they acquire access to new information.

If any of these changes occur during the decision-making process, interim choices made en route to a conclusion can be invalidated without the group's knowledge. Here's a little catalog of items subject to being invalidated.

The problem definition

The inputs When the time required
for a decision is much
longer than the time
scale of changes in the
environment, looping back
to review intermediate
conclusions is essentialto the process include the overall goal as it was understood at the outset, any intermediate goals developed during the process, and any data used for winnowing intermediate alternatives.

Intermediate lists of alternatives

If the group developed lists of alternatives during its process, those lists might not remain valid for the duration of the process. This can occur either because of changes in the problem space, or because of changes in group perceptions. If the group built its conclusions on intermediate decisions that it would not make again with its new, deeper understanding, trouble lies ahead. Trouble also looms if the group built its conclusions on alternatives inferior to those it would now find easily, knowing what it knows now.

The nature of alternatives

Even among recognized alternatives, changes can occur because the attributes of alternatives can evolve, either in reality or in the group's perceptions.

Decision makers achieve better outcomes if they periodically "loop back" to review intermediate conclusions. When they loop back, they can ensure that the same set of standards and knowledge was consistently applied throughout the process. It's a benefit similar to what we get from re-reading what we've read. Try it. Re-read this article and see what happens.  Top    Next Issue

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