Making Decisions in Projects

There is an abundance of theory on making decision in multiple forums, whether in the corporate boardroom, in voluntary organizations, in sports or even at home. The formal types range from strategic, tactical or operational and in less formal settings, the pros and cons, who benefits, what will be lost, what the leader wants or what is the consensus.

In fact, the decision process is normally well structured in most cases and usually begins with an assessment of the desired objective or problem followed by collecting all relevant data, information, opinions and consultations which leads into an analysis of the options, a complex iteration process with experts presenting a myriad of statistical calculations to present the least cost alternative or the highest return option, depending on the organization’s strategic objective. A decision is made, the organization implements it and monitors the outcome. In less complex scenarios, it’s as simple as lets’ have chocolate this Sunday as we had grapenut ice cream last Sunday. A simple matter of taste and preference.

What is key in most formal environments is the availability of resources, whether its access to data, subject matter experts, software, market, social or economic information to assist the decision maker. However, project environments can be a little different, with multiple dynamics affecting the decision making process, not least of which is timeline, inexperience, lack of subject matter experts, fear of impact and the organizational guidelines.

From my observation younger project managers are being thrust into projects with little or no expertise on the technical aspects of the project and organizations are sometimes constrained in employing consultants to support the projects, while the internal expertise are themselves swamped with their own projects, daily responsibilities and can only offer limited time for consulting on decision making.

Moreover, project activities are implemented within specific durations and require critical decisions long before the next weekly team meeting, leaving the project manager to be calling or emailing the functional department manager, the program manager or sponsor for a decision. Which unfortunately, the response seldom communicates an understanding of the immediacy of the situation.

Not only are project managers faced with inadequate resources and time constraints for decisions, one of the biggest factors I have seen is a hesitation and sometime unwillingness to take responsibility for the final decision. It becomes a nightmare to find the subject matter expert for the correct advice based on his knowledge or experience on the matter, then it becomes complicated because he doesn’t have the authority to instruct the project manager to proceed, then the responsible manager is new to the department and needs to some background before approving. So a meeting has to be scheduled between the functional manger, the project manager and the subject matter expert. Usually that’s for next week because their calendars are full, and the project manager sadly extends the activity duration, equipment rental charges and hope it doesn’t impact the critical path and budget.

I am sure we are all familiar with the scenario one way or another and had a few more grey hairs as we worked through scenario after scenario. But all is not lost, the PMBOK has guided us on understanding the Enterprise Environmental Factors from very early in the project initiation stage, learn the organization’s culture, understand the social environment and each stakeholder’s personality. It all comes together beautifully in leadership, where we build relationships, motivate, be assertive and become firm whenever required.