Data! I Need More Data!

In a prior life I was having a discussion with two of our managers on deciding between which of two food shows we should have a booth.  As the discussion went on, one of our managers said, "well, we just need to do more research on what the best food show is for us to attend."  While it is true we didn't have enough information to make a good decision, what we were missing was the decision criteria in which to make the right decision.  Once we focused the discussion on what our decision criteria was (buyer attendance, breadth of product line which we can show, and cost), our data gathering became much more purposeful and focused and yielded a better-informed decision.

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Some people just can't have enough data and are very reluctant to make decisions under less-than-optimal conditions.  As leaders, it is a very rare day that we have perfect information at our disposal in which to make decisions.  Maybe the information doesn't exist or the time taken to gather all of the information is cost-prohibitive.  What is important for us as leaders is to be very precise with the decision criteria and then gather must-need information to support the decision criteria.  Just setting out on a data-gathering expedition is not only frustrating for the person doing the research, it is also more expensive than basing information gathering on decision criteria.  

Next time you’re faced with deciding between multiple alternatives, take the time up front to define specific decision criteria then do your data gathering based on the criteria.  You'll make a high-quality decision which costs less in terms of time and money.

Lonnie Pacelli
Keynote Speaker | Board Director | Autism Advocate | Author | Project Management Expert | Microsoft/Accenture Veteran 
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