Headfirst into Difficult Project Decisions

Every project has them and at every stage, right from conception through to final system startup. Difficult, sometimes seemingly impossible, decisions that do not go away. Decisions nobody wants to address or stick their neck out on. Perhaps the decision stems from an earlier decision gone wrong or with unintended consequences. Perhaps there are far-reaching implications to costs, schedule, even personnel. Maybe it will impact one’s career ambitions. Often it’s a matter of Decision Paralysis where there are too many choices and outcomes. Some of the ineffective strategies employed in these circumstances include:

• Attempting to defer the decision to someone else
• Maintaining the status quo
• “It’s above my pay grade” is an oft cited reason
• Put off making the decision in hopes it will go away

Ultimately, we only slow down progress and hinder project success when we avoid making such decisions. Parkinson’s Law states that a task or decision expands in time required and complexity depending on the time you set it aside for it. If you say you will deal with the problem in a week it’s complexity and the time you need to find a decision will exponentially increase. Additionally, the longer a decision is put off the less opportunity we have to effect a positive outcome - our project influence curve decreases. If your decision involves potential project schedule impacts every day a decision is avoided your schedule has more and more opportunity to push to the right.

How do we get over these hurdles? Here are the steps we need to implement regardless of our “pay scale” or position on a project or in business:

Decide you have to make a decision and it has to happen sooner rather than later

• This is the biggest step

Create three options whenever possible

• Most decisions are not, in fact, just black and white or binary in nature. Even those that may have only two likely outcomes it is important to give yourself and team more than two choices to debate even if one is far out there. Think outside the box.

Talk to your team and other teams

• Communication is key when a decision has implications for others. Bring others to the table so they have a stake in the of implementation of the decision
• Do not forget the small voices they often bring the most to the table

Avoid Silo creation at all costs

• This is directly related to item 3. Silos are the beginning of the end of teamwork and collaboration. If we have silos we are not hearing all voices.

Compartmentalize.

• On large infrastructure projects we can become overwhelmed with the sheer enormity of our task. Methodologies like Advanced Work Packaging help compartmentalize project scope into a series of smaller, more manageable, projects. Focus on how your decisions impacts its specific scope first then at adjacently impacted scopes. 

By not dealing with tough decisions early, with team input, and with firmness we only pass off the problem to the future to a time we have no choice but to decide under greater pressure and likely a problem that will only grow in size with less opportunity to effect an ideal outcome.

What other strategies have you employed to deal with the tough decisions on your projects?