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Priorities Now Overview
 
CONTENTS
  1. Overview : Introduction
  2. Deciders
  3. deciding priorities
  4. decision types
  5. objective weightings
  6. decision standards
  7. conclusion
 
Overview : Introduction  

Priorities Now is a practical approach to individual and/or team decision-making. The individual or the team agree reasonable decisions reliably and fast on any difficult issues ranging from simple buying decisions to complex business strategy.

PRIORITIES NOW PROCESS

Priorities Now Scaling ProcessISSUES

ISSUE – Which Service Departments in our company should expand?

The first issue about any issue is whether it is genuine or a pseudo-issue . A pseudo-issue is either undecidable, or its resolution is already obvious and accepted by all. “Are there any other inhabited planets in the galaxy”? This is for all practical purposes an undecidable issue for most non-astronomers at present (though not for believers in extra-terrestrial visitations). “Should we try to become more successful?” This is an obvious non-issue for most companies (as opposed to the real issue of ‘how’).

A genuine issue is difficult, puzzling, complex, risky, uncertain. We probably have insufficient information about it, and will never have as much as we would like. There are three basic kinds:

- Selecting one from several candidates for a job, is an example of an exclusive ONE ANSWER issue, a black or–white matter which allows only 1 option as the solution (eg. 1 successful candidate).

- Scheduling the activities necessary to maintain a given service, exemplifies an inclusive DO EVERYTHING issue, an all-stations-go matter in which all options are on, though in a certain order or ranking or sequence (eg. first catch your hare, then cook it, then serve it).

- Allocating a limited budget across several services, exemplifies a partially inclusive BALANCED issue, a shade-of-gray matter which involves sharing out resources according to various degrees of priority (eg. 90% for operations; 10% R & D).

If there are so many constraints that the decider has no choice, then the issue is predetermined, and the only outstanding issue is one of implementation. While deciders rarely have complete freedom of action on any issue, it is also rare for all significant issues on the agenda to be completely predetermined. The area between complete autonomy and complete determinism is the deciders’ area of discretion.



COMPLETE
AUTONOMY		   COMPLETE
DETERMINISM
DISCRETION

To focus minds on the issue or subject to be decided or resolved, deciders may ask themselves ….What is the :

- problem to be resolved?
- opportunity to be seized?
- conflict or disagreement to be negotiated?
- difficulty to be surmounted?
- malfunction to be rectified?
- action to be planned?
- sub-objective to be achieved?
- situation to be dealt with?


OPTIONS

Issue : Which Service Departments should expand?
OPTIONS
(Department)
Accounts
Administration
Management Services (MS)
Personnel
Research and Development (R & D)


The first step in handling any issue is to recognise that we have some options available to us and to agree a reasonable cogent options agenda. Unless options can be specified, deciders are likely to find themselves wandering wonderingly in Alice’s Looking Glass Wood with no names.

An option is a distinct, definable element of the issue. You can effectively decide on just about any options with Priorities Now. Depending on the subject, the options may comprise:

project tasks actions
products cases alternatives
services persons opportunities
activities situations strategies
functions benefits possibilities
developments responses scenarios

Deciders may consciously generate options asking such questions as:

What actions are on our agenda for consideration?
What other courses of action should we add to our list?
Are we limited to available obvious alternatives?
Have we considered taking no action at all?
What other alternatives become available by changing our assumptions?

Some common options:

Do nothing Do more of the same
Simplify what’s done Do something similar
Split what’s done Double what’s done
Contract what’s done Buy in
Collaborate with others Combine things
Do something brand new Cut your losses

Options should be relatively capable of being prioritized. We cannot sensibly ask: “Is living more important than breathing?” Options should be relatively exhaustive of the agenda for consideration. We should not need to ask: “Is there something more important than life or death?” Deciders should have a relative common understanding of the options. We should not have to ask: “Is my east your west?” Deciders may test their agenda of options asking:
Does each option state or imply some tangible physical action?

  • Can we decide any preferences between these options? Can we meaningfully compare them?
  • Could there be any basis for saying that any one of these options is preferable to another for any reason?
  • Are these options reasonable distinct, relatively exhaustive, and roughly at the same level of specification?
  • Do the deciders have a reasonable common understanding of the options?
Occasionally, an issue presents an either-or to-be-or-not-to-be choice in which only two options are relevant. Eg. “Shall we pay the premium to join this association or not”. But people all too often treat issues in a black-or-white way when many more options are available. Eg. :”Which of the following five associations should we join if any?”

At the other extreme brainstorming groups may produce 50 or more options. Any individual’s judgement and consistency drops off significantly when deciding between 20+ simultaneously, and often becomes questionable with 10+ options. It is usually best therefore to group the options into packages of 20 or 10 options or less, either by kinds of options (eg. product types, instead of products), or by time span (eg. long – medium – short term), or by generalised importance (eg. strategic - tactical). You decide the priorities within the packages, then subsequently between the packages, to finally produce the overall priority list.

QUICKEST DECISIONS. At this point a decision may already be made immediately and pragmatically. The decider/s may decide between the options using the intuitive (or judgement ) method with the single objective: All Things Considered.
 

Overview Part   1  of  7
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