Examining an Effective Decision Making Tool

Examining an Effective Decision Making Tool

By

Dennis Burlison

University of Phoenix CS330 Facilitator-Robert Mc Ginnis 11/07/2005

What tools are available to assist teams in making a decision? In addition to creating an environment for effective decision making and reaching consensus on methods for making decisions as a team, there are tools that can assist teams in formulating and reaching decisions. Many of these tools were developed in the 1990s as companies working on improving quality and introducing self-managed team into the workplace. In decision-making there are many different decision-making models to assist us along the way. One thing with every decision- making model there are several decision-making tools needed to help narrow down the amount of information to only the ideas that are relevant to the decision at hand. In this paper we are going to examine one of the many different decision-making tools that can assist us in this process. The specific decision-making tool we shall discuss is for team-based decisions.

MULTIVOTING

In the decision making process brainstorming is used, by design, to generate a long list of ideas. If used alone this can become very overwhelming and unmanageable. Many of the ideas may not even be realistic or feasible. However Multivoting is designed to narrow the list or options into a manageable size for sincere consideration or study. It is not designed to help the group to make a single decision but can help the group to narrow a long list of ideas into a manageable number that can be discussed and explored. This will also allow the entire group to be involved and ultimately save the group a lot of time by allowing them to focus energy on the ideas with the greatest Potential.

The following is an a model of Multivoting from the "Strengthening Extension Advisory Leaders". [1]

When to use Multivoting:

* When the group has a long list of possibilities and wants to narrow it down to a few for analysis and discussion.

* When a selection process needs to be made after brainstorming.

Guidelines for Conducting the Multivoting Activity:

1. Brainstorm a list of options. Conduct the Brainstorming activity to generate a list of ideas or options.

2. Review the list from the Brainstorming activity. Once you have completed the list, clarify ideas, merge similar ideas, and make sure everyone understands the options.

Note: at this time the group is not to discuss the merits of any idea, just clarify and make sure everyone understands the meaning of each option.

3. Participants vote for the ideas that are worthy of further discussion. Each participant may vote for as many ideas as they wish. Voting may be by show of hands or physically going to the list and marking their choices or placing a dot by their choices. If they so desire, participants may vote for every item.

4. Identify items for next round of voting. Count the votes for each item. Any item receiving votes from half the people voting is identified for the next round of voting. For example, if there are 12 people voting, any item receiving at least six votes is included in the next round. Signify the items for the next vote by circling or marking them with a symbol, example all items with a star by the number will be voted on in the next round.

5. Vote again. Participants vote again, however this time they may only cast votes for half the items remaining on the list. In other words, if there are 20 items from the last round that are being voted on, a participant may only vote for ten items.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5. Participants continuing voting and narrowing the options as outlined in steps 4 and 5 until there is an appropriate number of ideas for the group to analyze as a part of the decision-making or problem solving process. Generally groups need to have three to five options for further analysis.