Course Overview

Project managers make numerous daily decisions, from approving business cases to managing change requests. These decisions impact project teams and the organization. Making good decisions involves making tough choices and considering significant risks.

Decision-Making Steps

A logical and rational process can guide project managers to make better decisions. This process can help them navigate complex problems and ensure consistency and minimize bias.

Decision-Making Techniques

While there’s no one-size-fits-all technique, having a toolbox of different approaches allows project managers to choose the best one for each situation. The decisions made can significantly impact project success or failure.

Course Benefits

This Xcelerate course provides a framework for making effective, rational, and ethical decisions. It equips participants with the fundamentals of decision-making, skills, tools, and techniques to make faster decisions with less risk and gain more support. The course also covers finding relevant data, communicating decisions, leading through change, and addressing common challenges like cultural differences, information quality, trust, and accountability.

Course Objectives

The course will empower professionals with:

• The ability to apply a decision-making framework, and process
• Tools and techniques that can help project managers to drive strong and quick decisions
• An awareness of knowing which tool/technique to apply for the practical decision to be made
• Different styles of decision making, and an awareness of which style is best suited for the specific situation
• Recognize how to spot and avoid common challenges when making decisions, which could lead to bad decisions
• Apply the process of Critical thinking to effective decision making
• Skills and techniques to reduce decision-making risk
• The knowledge to deal with ambiguity, and how to reduce risk and plan for contingencies.
• Ability to apply these learnings to enhance individual leadership development and organizational performance
• Opportunities to work hands-on on relevant case studies
• Develop the fine skills needed to effectively build critical thinking and decision-making skills

Training Methodology

This collaborative Decision Making in Project Management Course will comprise the following training methods:

• Lectures
• Seminars & Presentations
• Group Discussions
• Assignments
• Case Studies & Functional Exercises

Like all Xcelerate acclaimed courses, this program also follows the ‘Do-Review-Learn-Apply’ model.

Organizational Benefits

Organizations’ employees taking up this Decision Making in Project management training course will benefit in the following ways:

• Professionals who can make better, faster, informed decisions
• Enhancement in project delivery times, and quality, through increased organizational efficiency
• Decision-making process that eliminates unconscious biases that could hamper organizational values
• Achieve improved synergy within the Project teams due to the effective and timely decision-making, thus elevating employee morale and reducing frustrations, from waiting times
• Well-thought, fact-based decisions, reducing significant delays in getting stakeholder buy-in on critical decisions.
• Rapid organizational changes due to quick and impactful decisions
• Low risks of project failures due to the critical thinking, and risk management elements

Personal Benefits

Professionals attending this training course will have the following advantages:

• The required skillset and capabilities of successful Project Managers to utilize efficiency, through processes, tools, technology, and resources in the organization
• Leadership and communication skills, to help build trust, and the ability to communicate effectively on your final decisions
• Techniques for involving stakeholders in the decision-making process
• The process of making rational, unbiased decisions, through:
  • Obtaining complete and accurate data
  • Ability to process data
  • Examining your logic and your biases
  • Self-awareness & Ethics
  • Short-term and long-term impacts
• Enhanced perspective and foresight to foresee risk, challenges, and hindrances and to act upon these
• Develop comfort and competence to deal with ambiguity and uncertainty

Target Audience

• Executives, Senior management, and management of an organization who are accountable and responsible for the decisions made for the delivery of projects, project progress, and risk response, to name a few
• Active Project Managers looking to advance their skills in critical thinking and effective decision making
• Project Managers want to learn about decision-making styles, frameworks, processes, tools, techniques, skills, common challenges, and stakeholder management
• New project managers will benefit from early exposure to Decision making in the Project Management framework, process, and tools/techniques.
• Project Sponsors, Project Champions, Product Owners, and Business managers make daily decisions on how to progress the project and get what they need from their projects.
• Project team members, change management staff, organizational development staff, human resources personnel, and other team members who wish to learn and deepen their decision-making skills
• Any other professional who would like to know more about the decision-making framework, and process within the Project management scenario

Course Outline

The Decision-Making Process & Critical Thinking

• Defining decision-making
• Defining the decision
• The importance of critical thinking
• Distinguish causes vs. consequences
• Break big problems into small ones

Decision-Making Styles

• Choosing a decision-making style
• Autocratic decisions
• Participatory decisions
• Democratic decisions
• Consensus-based decisions

Identify the Real Problem

• Define the problem statement
• What’s causing the problem
• Ask focusing questions
• Assess urgency
• Gather essential information
• Asking the five whys
• The Kepner-Tregoe process
• Pareto analysis
• Look at the whole system

Project Stakeholder Management

• Involving stakeholders in decisions
• Using a RACI matrix

Decision-making models to generate possible solutions

• SWOT Analysis
• Maslow’s Pyramid
• Pareto Principle
• Brainstorming
• Mind maps
• Monte Carlo Simulation
• Decision Tree Analysis
• Multiple criteria
• Boosting your creativity

Generating objective criteria & selecting the best solution for the project

• Intuition and logic
• Rating charts
• Risk analysis
• Team decisions/voting
• Group Decision-Making Process (Unanimity, Majority, Plurality, Dictatorship)
• Elimination
• Sensitivity
• Four simple rules for decision making
• Don’t settle for second best
• Considering implementation feasibility
• Considering cost implications

Managing Ambiguity

• Accepting ambiguity
• Evaluating highly predictable outcomes
• Assessing distinct possible outcomes
• Considering a spectrum of outcomes
• Managing unpredictable outcomes

Common Problems / Common pitfalls when making decisions

• Mistaking the symptom, for the problem
• Cultural differences
• Quality of data
• Accountability and transparency
• Biases
• Trust
• Errors in logic
• False assumptions
• Unreliable memories

Key Ingredients for Good Decision-Making

• Give Yourself Enough Time
• Adequate, and accurate data for making decisions
• Get All the Facts
• Using the right tools
• Think of the Consequences
• Communicating effectively
• Seeking Other Opinions
• Being Flexible
• Applying critical thinking every day

Making the Decision & Monitor the Results

• Determining who’s involved
• Making the call
• Defining your measures
• Monitor outcome
• Declaring success

Decision-making practical case-studies

• Acquisition
• System implementation
• Market expansion