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Remote Work


HOW ASYNC PRACTICES CAN LEAD TO BETTER DECISION MAKING

By Stella Garber | Published on May 18, 2023 | 6 min read


It all starts with a ping in chat. The boss drops a video meeting link into the
team channel for a “quick convo” about annual planning, which is neither quick
nor just a convo. You scramble to pull together some data and slides, because
you realize your colleague who was doing some opportunity research is out today.
“Nevermind,” the boss says, “let’s just get aligned with whoever is available.”

Hours later, after much frustration and flinging ideas at the wall, the boss
decides on a plan that no one really wants to rally around, but the boss is the
boss. What happened to alignment? You find yourself wondering: was this the best
outcome, and could there have been a better way to get there?

If this situation sounds familiar, you are certainly not alone. In fact, I have
spoken to hundreds of workers across roles and industries and they all share the
same frustration that too often important decisions are happening ad hoc in
meetings or Slack, leading to poor results.

So, what are we doing wrong?


CLEANING UP OUR BAD DECISION MAKING HYGIENE 

Extensive research shows that running an entire decision making process
synchronously introduces many bad practices that worsen decision outcomes:

 * Lack of ownership: Without an established decision owner, it is unclear who
   should be driving the process.

 * Lack of information: When you attempt to make a decision during an impromptu
   meeting, there is often not enough time to source the best options and
   collect the relevant data.
 * Introduction of groupthink: Often, dissenting views are minimized in order to
   maintain social harmony, which can prevent diverse ideas.
 * The “loudest voice” effect: Not everyone is comfortable speaking up during
   meetings, especially when leadership is in the room. So it’s common that the
   loudest voice, not necessarily the smartest, wins.

Obviously, some decisions that come up during a meeting (where should we go for
lunch after this meeting?) can be settled right then and there. However, most
important decisions benefit from a decision making process. 

Now, don’t let the word “process” sound like a scary monster that’s going to add
something big and cumbersome to your day. It’s actually quite easy to improve
decision making within your organization in just a few easy steps. I promise. 


GET EVERYONE ON THE SAME PAGE

The first things to consider when beginning the decision making process is
reducing ambiguity around the decision being made, understanding the scope of
the decision, and identifying whether it is a one-way or two-way door decision. 

One-way door decisions are like exiting airport security: they are nearly
impossible to reverse and require a lot of time. Whereas two-way door decisions
can be reversed if the results are suboptimal, like a change to your product’s
pricing and packaging. 

One of the biggest proponents of one-way and two-way door decisions is Richard
Branson, who realized that most business decisions are actually two-way
decisions: decisions where we should feel comfortable moving fast, learning, and
iterating. 

Once you understand the scope of the decision, bring clarity and alignment to
the decision making process by starting with these three steps:

 1. Identify the specific problem or opportunity
 2. State your goals
 3. Give any additional context that’s available

All of this information should be clearly documented and openly accessible to
anyone involved in the decision, thus removing the need for alignment meetings
that clog calendars. In other words, don’t just throw important info into a
Slack channel. 


ACCOUNTABILITY IS KEY FOR MAKING DECISIONS AND MOVING FORWARD

Why do decisions linger to the point where we wind up on harried calls rushing
an outcome? It’s because we often fail to set up systems of accountability to
drive decisions forward.

After establishing the scope of the decision to be made, the next step is to
define the following:

 * The decider: This is the person who is in charge of making the final
   decision, as well as the person responsible for keeping everyone moving
   forward. The decider for most non-business critical decisions should be
   someone who is close to the relevant data, as leaving all decisions up to
   leadership can result in slower, more error prone decisions. 

 * The contributors: Contributors should be stakeholders who are close to the
   data around the decision being made. Contributors are empowered with
   providing options and information to back those options, as well as opinions
   when weighing-in on the best path forward. 

 * The due date: Key to the decision making process is identifying a due date. A
   due date too soon means there may not be enough time to gather enough
   information, but a due date too far into the future might impact our ability
   to implement the decision, learn, and iterate. Choose a due date that makes
   sense for the scope of the decision and hold everyone to it.

By establishing the decider, contributors, and due date, everyone can now
operate asynchronously within the allotted time frame to focus on their roles.
The DACI framework is a great way to establish processes and assign key
contributors in order to help make decisions. 


WEIGH-IN ON OPTIONS WITHOUT BIAS

One of the biggest problems with making decisions in meetings is that meetings
perpetuate  groupthink and the introduction of many biases. By driving the
decision making process asynchronously we can remove many biases by giving
people the time and space to consider the options, as well as a level the
playing field for providing responses. 

With the various options documented, allow the contributors and decision maker
to weigh-in on the positives and negatives. No peeking! 

Might it be slightly awkward to find out you and your boss have dissenting
opinions? Maybe. Is it worth a better outcome? Definitely. 



Attach Hoop decisions to your Trello board using smartlinks.

Depending on the tool you are using to document your decision this can be done
in a few different ways - every contributor gets their own card to respond in
Trello, collapsible fields in Confluence for each contributor, or an app like
Hoop which is built for asynchronous decision making. 

Sometimes it might be necessary to hop into a meeting if the weigh-in process
reveals a serious lack of alignment. In these cases, at least everyone will be
going into that meeting having had the opportunity to openly and honestly share
their thoughts beforehand, which will allow for a much more productive and less
awkward conversation.


DOCUMENT AND DISTRIBUTE THE DECISION

When the decision has been finalized, document the decisions in an openly
accessible source of truth, and broadcast it far and wide. Make sure all
stakeholders are aware of the outcome and have a place for them to learn more
about the outcome and its implications. Luckily, this can all be done
asynchronously without having to organize a meeting: 

 * Document the decision in an open format like a Confluence page or Hoop
 * Record a Loom video explaining the decision and allow for async Q&A
 * Establish a source of truth for all company decisions so that anyone can
   easily find that information in the future
 * You may also consider additionally sharing the decision outcome as a song and
   dance, should the mood suit you.


FOUR EASY STEPS FOR BETTER DECISION MAKING, FASTER

As you can see, getting out of the Zoom room and into more asynchronous decision
making habits can not only help us make better decisions but also free up our
calendars for the important deep work that fuels our days. 

Remember that scenario we described earlier? All of that stress, distraction,
and wasted time can be erased and replaced with more important work, like funny
cat TikToks for the company blog (serious ROI driver.)

To recap, here are the four steps to implement an asynchronous decision making
process today:

 1. Clarify the scope of the decision
 2. Create accountability
 3. Weigh-in without bias
 4. Document outcomes and distribute

The key is to remember that most decisions are two-way doors that don’t require
us to have 100% of the information in order to move forward. At the end of the
day, we should be focused on establishing a process that allows us to
continually decide, implement, learn, and iterate. 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Good or bad, we’d love to hear your thoughts. Find us on Twitter (@trello)!

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