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Individual Decision-Making. Many perhaps most times, there is only one individual decider, namely the user. (In this case his/her influence is 100%). Other times, there is a team of deciders.
Team Decision-Making. Organisations are networks of deciders. Unless the decider/s are specified, there is a danger that the issue will remain undecided, on everyone’s agenda of concern but on no-one’s agenda of responsibility. Deciders are those stakeholders who in respect of the issue may or (should) have some:
Unless a person has some influence or discretion on an issue, even if it is only advisory, he or she is not a decider on that matter. The decision-making team may be a roll-call for a decision meeting, an advisory group, a responsibility structure, a role analysis, a power chart, or an established section of the hierarchy. Here are some questions that sensitise deciders to the sometimes delicate power issues involved:
Occasionally, an issue is so complex that only one specialist decider is competent. At the other extreme organizational participation may exercises may involve 30 or more deciders (or at any rate, decision participants). Any team’s judgement and concordance drops off significantly when there are 10+ members of the decision-making team. It is usually best to group the deciders into teams of about 10 people or less, either by specialism (eg. professional, administrator, director), or organizational level (eg. company director, departmental director, section decider), or by degree of influence on the issue (eg. high – medium – low influence). You decide priorities within each team, then subsequently between the teams, to finalise the overall priority list. A minimum of 1 decider (ie. the user) is required and a maximum of 10 deciders are allowed on any one run of Priorities Now. INFLUENCE OF DECIDERS
A decider’s influence is the relative weight or importance attached to his/her advice on the issue … how much clout he/she carries. For example, the Finance Director usually has relatively more influence on the organization’s financial decisions than the HR Director. Unless the deciders are coherently differentiated in terms of influence, there is a danger that those with the most interest, experience, knowledge or capability in respect of the issue may be ignored. All deciders may have equal influence on a one-person-one-vote principle, as in democratic or polyarchic arrangements. One top-dog decider may have total (100%) on a one-boss-only principle allocating such other influence as he/she chooses among advisors, as in hierarchic arrangements. More commonly influence may be dispersed and variable so that deciders’ influence varies according to their relative importance or implicit voting power on the issue concerned. The basis for a decider’s influence may be: legal: formal legitimated authority scientific; knowledge authority professional: experimental power political: personal or constituency interest institutional: representative authority psychological: charismatic/caring power social: prestige/popularity A test of how much more or less influence each decider should have is to ask in respect of the issue: How much influence does each decider have here? And should have? Is one more responsible/ accountable than the other here? Has one more experience/know-how on the matter than others? Are those with a legitimate interest or stake in the issue represented? Are those with counter posing interests balanced out? Do the influence weightings reflect sectional/hierarchic levels? Should they? How far is he/she able to carry out his/her decision in the face of opposition? (If you’ve any difficulties with influences of deciders, you can just run a new issue on the subject “How much influence should each decider have on QUICKEST TEAM DECISIONS. At this point a team decision may already be made immediately and pragmatically. The deciders may decide between the options using the intuitive (or judgment) method with the single objective: All Things Considered.