Changing a Good Decision Making Process Based on Results

Construction projects are complex requiring thousands of decisions made across dozens of teams over many months to ultimately result in a good outcome

D. Brown Management Profile Picture
D. Brown Management
March 4, 2018 2 minute read
Share
Leadership Tools: Resulting. Don't Confuse Good Results with Good Decision Making Processes. Book: Thinking in Bets by Annie Duke.

As a leader in the construction industry the majority of your value-add is:

  1. Making good decisions
  2. Ensuring those decisions are executed
  3. Teaching others how to do the same  

In a simple system the decision tree may have a few known variables and a single clear path which is easily trainable.  

Most project decisions are more complex having more variables and outside influences impacting results over a longer time span.  Given time pressures and limits of the human brain only a few of those variables can be accounted for accurately in our mental model of a situation.  

The results of a good decision making process are not 100% good but the average results over time are good.  Resulting is a term used in poker when a player starts changing a good decision making process based on the resulting outcomes.  This seems logical but will lead to an overall decline in results with increased variability.   

Smarter, Faster, Better

Contact us to learn how we train teams to make better decisions

Underlying Causes of Changes on Projects
Start improving your change management skills by creating some categories of the underlying causes of changes your company experiences.
Related Article
Management Accountabilities: Two Foundational Basics
Managers have two basic foundational accountabilities. The first is delivering consistent outcomes given the inconsistencies of the inputs, people, and environment. The second is developing people at all levels into their fullest potential along the way.
Related Article
Early Identification is a Process - Effectively Using Checklists
Few things will improve customer satisfaction, profitability, cash flow, risk, and team stress more than early identification of change orders. This is a process and a trainable skill. Checklists are some of the most valuable tools in that process.
Related Article