In today’s challenging business environment, volatility and uncertainty are prevailing forces. Right now, it feels like decisions may be more like forecasts that typically result in deferred decision making, at least until the future becomes more predictable. Delayed decision-making puts us in an unwelcome state of inertia which is the exact opposite of what is required right now.  Then how can we re-activate decision-making when volatility and uncertainty are prevailing forces?

AUTONOMY AND TRUST

In a recent article, NSP Client and Technical Operations Manager, Dawid Gericke, explored the idea that through autonomy comes trust. For example; where teams have opportunities to self-govern, there visibility and ultimately trust take place.

VISIBILITY AND TRANSPARENCY

Critical decision making relies heavily on the data and information that is provided and analysed at the team level. Therefore, teams that share information in a collaborative, highly visible manner have a keener sense of overall success objectives. Organisations that want to make better use of the data they gather should focus on two things: training workers to increase their data literacy and more efficiently incorporate information into decision making, and giving those workers the right tools. For effective decision making, you’ll want ‘informed sceptics’ on your team. These are the employees best equipped to make the right decisions and effectively balance judgment and analysis. They possess strong analytic skills and listen to others’ opinions but are willing to dissent. They’re the kind of data-savvy workers every company should try to cultivate.

As collaboration platforms go, Microsoft Teams is one that provides an environment where employees can quickly and safely share data to gain insight into project success. With Teams, you can consolidate data and analytics across silos to make better decisions. This clarity re-activates the decision-making process, removing the guesswork and ensuring the right decisions occur for the organisation.  Highly collaborative tools, including power BI tabs, chat channels, document sharing, planners, lists and online meeting facilities, offer employees a picture of overall success points. Moreover, these tools support better decision-making and higher success rates.

CULTURE

A culture of trust is often the result of an autonomous team, one with access to strategy, project overviews and progress of objectives. Therefore, collaborative channels eliminate surprises and build trust and collaborative tools foster trust. Trust is a critical factor in both technology adoption and implementation and will factor highly in how successful collaborative relationships within your organisation become. Therefore, thoughtful IT increases access to more and better information while also creating collaborative environments both inside and outside of your physical, organisational space. Moreover, the collaborative solutions that dwell within this environment can reduce the cost of communications, increase the accessibility of information, reduce response times, and facilitate a more agile and dynamic cooperative work environment.

TACTICS

1. Question your ‘informed sceptics’ around the processes they believe to be most critical to achieving business goals in today’s new environment
2. Review the outcomes. You may decide that software licensing needs to be reviewed, or that employee training needs boosting. Potentially new process may need to be introduced, or the old process adapted and this may come with a need to review new applications and technology that will help streamline the process.
3. Prioritise the outcomes based on the potential impact of the process or process change in regards to how it assists the journey towards successfully attaining business goals.
4. Take action. Engage members of your team to propel the thinking around process. Work with expert partners to ensure new processes are implemented quickly, efficiently and in a targeted manner.  Make sure your partners are doubtless in your success – they should demonstrably be able to articulate the journey you will be embarking on.
5. Evaluate. Create an evaluation structure that will ensure the new process iterates quickly. Being able to ‘fail fast and iterate’ is key to business success in a volatile market.