Say Goodbye to "Bunch Ball" Decision-Making

Does decision-making in your organization sometimes look like “bunch ball”—you know, when young soccer players swarm the ball, don’t pass, and don’t play positions? Debbie and I have worked with organizations large and small where too many people want to be involved in every decision.

The result, as you may have experienced, can be frustrating, painful decision-making. If you recognize any of these symptoms in your organization, you may be suffering from “bunch ball” decision-making:

  • Decision delay: Getting input and buy-in from everyone takes forever, possibly without a clear decision owner.
  • Decision swirl: Decisions are made but then revisited, sometimes more than once.
  • Decision tunnel vision: Decisions are made in silos, without understanding the upstream and downstream impacts.

So what’s the winning game plan? How do you help your organization outgrow “bunch ball” decision-making and become World Cup decision-makers? As with successful soccer teams, everyone has to know their position and play it well. It’s all about roles and responsibilities!

Meet the Players

Of the several decision-making frameworks we’ve seen in action, we use a Driver, Approver, Consultants, and Informed (DACI) model for its simplicity and flexibility in laying out each role’s responsibilities. (Note: This is a scalable process. You can identify roles quickly, often in your head, with no burdensome overhead.)

  • The Driver guides the decision-making process. 
  • The Approver makes the final call and is accountable for the outcome.
  • The Consultants provide data and advice to ensure a sound decision.
  • The Informed are told about the decision but do not have a say.

For DACI to work, everyone must play their position. “Stay in your lane!” was what one of our clients exhorted. Beyond that general principle, here are some tips for each role in a moderate-to-complex decision.

If you’re the Driver, you make sure the decision moves forward. Engage the Approver. Cast a wide net to ensure all Consultants are identified and then ruthlessly edit down the list to only key Consultants. Get clear on how decision choices will be identified and evaluated. In complex decisions, you may also be the one to collect input from the Consultants and evaluate them for the Approver. Your efforts are critical to getting a timely, effective decision made.

If you’re the Approver, be available to the Driver to review DACI roles, discuss the context and desired outcomes of the decision, help identify evaluation criteria to be used, review the Consultants’ input, and whatever else is important for reaching a sound decision. You’re accountable for the decision and its outcome, so help the Driver help you.

If you’re a Consultant, remember that you don’t have veto power. You provide your expertise, opinion, data, or other input and trust the Approver to consider your contribution in combination with the rest of the input collected.

Informed? You’re only a spectator even if you care deeply about the outcome. When you hear the decision, you’ll want to model acceptance and responsiveness.

Sizing Your DACI

Of course, you’ll want to adapt DACI to your specific needs. Like in a simple backyard scrimmage, sometimes one person plays multiple roles. In a limited-scope decision such as a department website redesign, the Driver and Approver could be the same person. For a big, complex decision like where to relocate an office or in which market to first launch a product, there might be a lot of information to collect, many people involved, and the need for a dedicated Driver to manage the process and provide a recommendation to the Approver.

SCORE: Your Team: 1 Painful Decision-Making: 0

When the players identified in the DACI framework work effectively together, your decisions are made without delay, are revisited only with good reason, and balance all stakeholder needs. DACI for the win!

We’ve got a wealth of resources, activities, and workshops designed to help improve your organization’s decision-making. If you enjoyed these tips, sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a future post or learning event announcement. 

CW Training and Consulting specializes in hands-on, interactive project management related skills boosting workshops - either off the shelf or customized to your needs.  Contact Us and we'll help you find the right learning solution for you and your business.

Decision Making - 05/02/2023

Six Project Communication Tips for Project Success

You may have read articles on how good project communication is critical to project success. So what is good communication? Here are our best tips to help you become an expert communicator on your project. Some of them even apply in life!

1. Be clear and direct.

    There’s nothing more frustrating for your listener than vague language and rambling. Know that sometimes your message may be difficult to hear, but softening the message too much doesn’t help. What helps is being clear and direct with facts, requests, and consequences. If you’re asking someone to work the weekend, make a direct request (“If you and I work this weekend, we can bring in the date. Are you able to do that?”) instead of a vague statement (“I wonder if there’s anything we can do to help bring in the date”). There’s an added benefit that you’re more likely to get a clear, direct response, too.

    1. Stand in your stakeholders’ shoes.

    Describe the project status or a newly discovered issue from more than just your perspective. Address what your stakeholders care about and what their worries might be, including relevant context, and use specific, straightforward language — not jargon. If you’re sharing the news that your project date is slipping, your manager or sponsor will want to know that you understand why it happened and how you will prevent it from happening again. The same goes for good news. Show that you understand the why.

    1. Create a project communication plan.

    Even if your project is small or doesn’t impact many people, it’s worth your time to identify whom you’ll communicate to and the communication types, channels, and frequencies you’ll use. Your core working team might meet weekly and also have a Slack channel for quick questions and updates. The rest of your stakeholders might benefit from a monthly email update that you post on your project web page, too. And if you’re new to the company or the role, it’s worth checking around for standard communication tools and processes. You may not have to reinvent the wheel!

    1. Get to know the project sponsor’s communication style and needs. 

    If you have a project sponsor, take the time to learn their style and preferences for project communication. Hands-on or hands-off? Slack or phone calls? Lots of detail or just a summary and specific asks? Your project sponsor is your best ally in setting you up for success, addressing any challenges, and ensuring project follow-through, so get to know them well.

    1. Don’t make it personal.

    When there are challenges, describe what has to change through the lens of the process rather than making it personal. For example, instead of making it about you and a teammate (“Why didn’t you tell us you were running late? Did you think we didn’t need to know?”), focus on why being late is a problem, letting the process do the talking (“As a downstream partner, my team is impacted by this project, so we’d like to know as soon as you know that the project has slipped. Can you include us in your communications?”).

    1. Find appropriate ways to use humor.

    If it fits with your style, find ways to infuse a little humor into your project communications. It’ll go a long way to reducing stress, both yours and your audience’s, and makes the work environment a little more pleasant. Ask at least one other person to review your humor for appropriateness, though, and know your company’s culture so you don’t go overboard.

    That’s it! Do these six tips for effective project communication consistently and your projects will run more smoothly.  Here’s to great success!

    Find this and other free resources at cwtrainingandconsulting.com and if you enjoyed these tips, sign up for our newsletter so you don’t miss a future post or learning event announcement. 

    CW Training and Consulting specializes in hands-on, interactive project management skills boosting workshops - either off the shelf or customized to your needs.  Contact Us and we will help you find the right learning solution for you and your business.

    Business Communication / Project Management - 10/23/2021

    What's in a Project Definition?

    Welcome back to Demystifying Project Success, a blog series on the 5 key principles of project success.  The first of 5 key principles to any project's success is a concise project definition.  
     

    What's in a Project Definition?

    You might ask, why bother with a project definition? It gets all team members on the same page, aids decision-making along the way, and provides something to validate against at the end of the project.  A good project definition communicates goals and outcomes in a concise manner that is easy to understand by all parties.  
     
    Consider three key aspects to a concise project definition:
     

    Easy to understand

    A good project definition is easy to understand by all consumers of the information.  Think about well written websites - they are short and to the point.  They are also understandable by a wide range of readers.  The same goes for your project definition.   
     
    Think about your extended audience. Will executives skim the content?  Will poeple who don't work in your department read it?  If so, choose language that is not overly specific to your function. For example, if you are working on an engineering project, be sure to describe it in a way that is understandable by finance and other business functions.  The reverse is true as well.
     

    Appropriate level of detail

    Try to keep your core project definition to 2-3 sentences.  Consider the format, "We are doing this project BECAUSE xxx SO THAT yyyy."  The "because" statement is the problem you are solving; the "so that" statement is the outcome you hope to achieve.
     
    In my shed project (that I referenced in my first post), I might write, "I am building a new shed because I want to move my boxes and tools out of my garage so that I can store my car and exercise equipment in my garage."  I could add the target end date, "...by November when the rainy season starts" to make the timing clear.
     
    Avoid a detailed business case or specifics of how you will conduct the project.  If you need those details, put them someplace else.  Do not include them in the core definition. If you have a project that is large in scope, it's ok to go a little longer - maybe a short paragraph for why and a short paragraph for the outcome.  

    Verification

    Does your project definition provide the project team and stakeholders with enough information to verify the outcomes?  If my goal is to build a shed to store my boxes and tools, how do I know whether I am successful when I am done?  Try to include verifiable metrics in your definition.   If you cannot measure, then come up with something that will help you verify success.  
     
    In my definition for my shed, I said "large enough" to store my tools.  If I were to be more rigorous, I would measure the volume of the tools and boxes, add a little buffer and include the size of the shed in my definition.  If I could not measure the volume, I would know I was successful when I try to move my boxes and tools.  Obviously, measuring would better ensure success.
     

    Get Concise Now

    In the end, I might end up with a definition for my shed project that is short, sweet, and to the point.  Not only that, it's easy to say in hallway conversation.  
     
    "I am building a 10x10 shed because I want to move my boxes and tools out of my garage so that I can store my car and exercise equipment in my garage.  My goal is to complete the project before the rains begin in November."
     
    Regardless of whether it is required, write down your project definition.  Say it out loud to someone who is not connected to the project.  This is a great test of whether it is concise and easy to understand. 
     

    Learn More

    If you enjoyed this post, please FOLLOW our page and COMMENT.  I would like to hear from you and exchange ideas!  To hear when I publish my next article, please click "Follow" at the top of this page.  If you missed the overview, check out my previous post, 5 Key Principles of Project Success.
     
     

    If you enjoyed these tips, sign up for our newsletter and don’t miss a future post or learning event announcement. CW Training and Consulting specializes in hands-on, interactive project management workshops - either off the shelf or customized to your needs.  Contact Us and we will help you find the right learning solution for you and your business.

    Business Communication / Project Management - 11/08/2016
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