Telecom & Technology Consulting
There’s an adage that says there are three kinds of people: 1) Those who make things happen; 2) Those who watch what happens; 3) And those who wonder what happened. If you’re a technology leader, you never want to be in the 3rd category. But that may be your fate if you don’t recognize the importance of making fast decisions.
When projects don’t turn out as you expected, blame often points to a technical issue. But in many cases, slow decision-making is what’s responsible for lack of success, for just about every initiative.
For example, you may be conducting a large-scale SAP transformation. The technical phase is on schedule, with system integration testing going smoothly. But late to the game are the critical program decisions. And without the latter, the project may launch way behind schedule, or even worse, not match requirements when implemented.
But delaying decisions results in more than scheduling issues. Without clear directions, teams end up making assumptions and “educated guesses” as to what to perform next. No wonder, then, that weeks or months later you see scope creep, integration gaps, and unexplained variances. Even more troubling, the slow-decision mentality often becomes part of the culture, and shapes outcomes of every other initiative, which ultimately affects the overall success of the organization.
When outcomes don’t match expectations, instead of realizing it may be due to decision drag, leaders may add more governance, such as a new steering committee. But once again, that’s the wrong course of action. Instead, the decisions are either not timely or fully of ambiguity.
Of course, the critical question is why there’s an issue with the decision-making process. It could be that no one is officially accountable for making the final call. Or the governance team had reviewed decisions that lacked ownership by one individual. In a domino effect, then, an unclear decision made managers unable make their own decision, which in turn created confusion for executives when trying to resolve their decisions.
Here’s where there needs to be the right balance between alignment on key decisions and taking decisive action. Sure, you want major stakeholders to agree on the direction of a project, but at some point that process can becomes counterproductive. There are too many cooks in the kitchen, often working in isolation, either unable or, more likely, unaware of the need for the final decision to made quickly, or immediately.
This is why you don’t require more governance – you need unambiguous ownership. To do so, try reducing the number of required stakeholders for each decision. And realize that alignment doesn’t mean that everyone must be physically in the conference room. Rather, you must have the right people, each with clearly defined roles, who are distinctly accountable for their own “micro” decisions. At the same time, remove participants who are not responsible for contributing to the overall decision-making process. It’s a winning, simple formula: as the group becomes smaller, you have fewer voices, less chatter, and finally faster, more accurate decisions.
On that note, spell out the expectation that before the meeting ends, you will walk way with the final decision. No more “let’s meet again next week to decide.” This sense of urgency not only puts people on their toes, it actually sparks deeper thinking and fosters new perspectives about the potential of a given project.
As you can see, eliminating inertia doesn’t require new or more technology, it doesn’t force you to add another layer of governance. The solution is to gain complete clarity about decision ownership, which leads to the purposeful choices your enterprise needs to remain competitive.
Business transformation may depend on the technical solutions themselves, but the success of the actual implementation relies on leadership capability and organizational behavior. And that means making clear, timely decisions.
