Now let’s look at the scope of our presentation. We will cover 5 topics today: A Brief History − What led to today’s presentationWe’ll begin with a brief history of what led to today’s presentation. Then, to put “Faster, Smarter Decision Cycles” into context, we’ll do a quick “fly-by” of the… The OODA Loop − The OODA Loop --- Observe, Orient, Decide, Act --- is a great example of seeing decisions as a continuous cycle. The dominant success factor is the speed of interaction with your environment. The OODA Loop was developed by Colonel John Boyd of the U.S Air Force, and….Incidentally, the co-author of Leland’s book, “Winning In FastTime®”, was Colonel John Warden, the U.S. air force colonel that General Colon Powell acknowledged as the architect of the Desert Storm air campaign. Wikipedia describes Warden as “the leading air power theorist of the second half of the twentieth century“ and “one of America’s premier strategic thinkers”. The Decision Cycle™ − Three Dimensions: Leland will give you the thinking behind the three dimensions & then…The Decision Cycle™ − the two of us will walk you through the Best Practice examples for each dimension The Decision Cycle™ − Three Applications
The MISSION OF FastTime® Leadership is to provide leaders and planners with methods for thinking, planning and acting that are fast, simple and cost effective.Our actions are based on THREE CORE BELIEFS: The first is…“Follow First Principles” - A first principle is a basic, foundational proposition. From a decade of research and hands-on experience with hundreds of leaders in the Fortune 500, as well as non-profits, government agencies and the military, WE HAVE IDENTIFIED 5 FIRST PRINCIPLES for winning in the New Normal: Forethought, Integration, Responsibility, Speed and Transitions.Leland was recently asked to write an article about these First Principles for the Leader-To-Leader Journal. If you would like an advance copy, please give is your card or email advisors@fasttime-leadership.comOur second core belief is “Deliver the essence of the best” and that’s what we’ll be doing today. Presenting a synthesis of the best thinking on “how to ensure faster, smarter decision cycles” Our third core belief is “Organize with radical simplicity”and that’s what we’ve done with our agenda. We will focus on the vital few things that will make the biggest difference for you in leading faster, smarter decision cycles.EXPLAIN HANDOUT
Evolution of FastTime® - 1990, 2000, 2010Headline: 22 Years in the making TBD
Successful Client Applications (Leland)TBD
The Breakthrough Question (Leland)About two years ago, a client asked a question that fired my neurons: “How do you increase both the quality and speed of decisions at all levels of your organization?” Answering that question led to the creation of The Decision Cycle™ Assessment you are exploring today. Before we move into the Assessment, let’s clarify the meaning of some key terms. A decision is a commitment to a course of action. Decision Making is a cognitive process that creates a commitment to a course of action. Decisions translated into action are like pistons converting pressure into force that moves the organizational flywheel. The faster you make decisions, the faster the flywheel moves.Making and implementing faster, smarter decisions is the key to winning in the New Normal. Delivering on this task is a challenge for leaders at every level. Technology, globalization and interwoven financial markets not only reduce the time between events and decisions, they increase the consequences of decisions. In short, there is less room for error. That is why improving decision quality is absolutely essential. Because of rapid, often unpredictable change, time windows for decisions are closing faster than ever. When the rate of decisions falls behind the time windows, problems emerge because, in the New Normal, time is NOT on your side. Now let’s consider the “how” part of the question, which leads us into systems thinking. To achieve faster, smarter decisions at all levels of an organization, you need a whole system perspective. Piece-meal just doesn’t cut it. You have to understand and align the dots. You also have to see decisions as a continuous cycle occurring over time, rather than as a static snapshot.
A Aha! Moment (Leland)TBD
A The Value of Decision-Making Quality and Pace (Joyce)Joyce --- Explain this they way you explained it to me… You could start by saying, “A few years ago…. (it’s “Marakon Associates. I have several articles published by them and have)
Strategies and plans are decisions (Leland)TBD
The ODAA Loop (Leland)A great example of seeing decisions as a continuous cycle is the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, Act), developed by a 20th century military genius, Colonel John Boyd of the United States Air Force.Boyd believed that the key to winning is to make smart decisions faster than your opponent. He was dubbed "Forty Second Boyd" because he consistently won aerial ‘dog fights’ in less than forty seconds. According to his theory, the speed of interaction with your environment is the dominant factor. The winner prevails because he makes his opponent respond to an obsolete perception of the environment. Boyd emphasized that rapid adaptation is critical to survival and that it can only be achieved through a dynamic decision process that is in synch with its changing environment. In an organization, the only practical way to apply the OODA Loop is to harness the decision making capacity of individuals at every level. But there is are two prerequisites: a high trust level and a common outlook.
Three Dimensions (Leland)The Decision Cycle™ Assessment evaluates a group’s capacity for fast, smart decision cycles in three dimensions:Decision StagesThe first dimension of the Assessment focuses on the processes that are critical for fast, smart decisions:Define – Frame the question, problem or opportunity.Generate / Compare – Explore and assess multiple alternativesDecide / Plan – Choose the best alternative and define action steps. Implement / Monitor – Take action and track the results. Review / Adjust - Think about your results and why and course correct.Decision EnablersThe second dimension of the assessment focuses on the means by which you achieve fast, smart decisions:Virtual Tools / Processes – to streamline and accelerate the processes. Collective Intelligence – to make smarter decisions with greater buy-in. Decision Ownership – to ensure urgency and accountability.Decision BehaviorsThe third dimension of the Assessment focuses on the personal conduct that is critical for fast, smart decisions:Trust Behaviors – Trust opens the door for honest communications.Participant Behaviors – Pace and quality require proactive participants.Cognitive Behaviors – Interrogate reality from multiple perspectives.
Best Practice / Weyerhaeuser – RULES OF ENGAGEMENTThe term "Rules of Engagement" derives from the military world, where it defines what is and is not permissible behavior in combat situations. These rules are not static; they are reconsidered as combat circumstances change. The fact that the Rules of Engagement are not set in stone is a tremendous advantage. Few situations are static; when the marketplace dynamics shift in a fundamental way or the organization moves into an entirely new situation, the Rules of Engagement should be re-evaluated. Do yesterday's rules still make sense?The task for leaders is to ensure that people have the right Rules of Engagement to meet the current situation and that they are SIMPLE. If they are too complex or too ambiguous, they are of little value. Most importantly, leaders must ensure that the current Rules of Engagement are known and understood throughout the organization. There is one special benefit to the ability to redefine the Rules of Engagement: it helps you shift the organization's decision-making patterns. Used in this way, Rules of Engagement can be an antidote to "legacy" mindsets and a powerful tool for managing FastTime structural change in an organization.
Decision Cycle Stages SummaryIn summary of the cycle stages, a Decision is a commitment to a course of action, and the Cycle is those processes and structures that are needed to quickly and effectively enact the decisionThe cycle is consistent with key principles and dynamics of Systems ThinkingThere is What You Know and The Rest (which you don’t know)As you enlarge what you know, you do not reduce the size of the Rest but you do get a better picture of The Whole and more insight into what you don’t know and how to tap thatThe cycle is also iterative: in each stage when you make a decision, you can actually go through a little mini-DC as you are moving onto the next stageKnowing and activating the 5 stages is necessary but not sufficient for enacting decisions effectively... And that is what we will focus on now: Decision Enablers and Decision Behaviors[Leland.. Where does the Decision Alignment and the Alignment Matrix as a tool for aligning content of different decision with the whole and each other fit..
Three Dimensions (Leland)The Decision Cycle™ Assessment evaluates a group’s capacity for fast, smart decision cycles in three dimensions:Decision StagesThe first dimension of the Assessment focuses on the processes that are critical for fast, smart decisions:Define – Frame the question, problem or opportunity.Generate / Compare – Explore and assess multiple alternativesDecide / Plan – Choose the best alternative and define action steps. Implement / Monitor – Take action and track the results. Review / Adjust - Think about your results and why and course correct.Decision EnablersThe second dimension of the assessment focuses on the means by which you achieve fast, smart decisions:Virtual Tools / Processes – to streamline and accelerate the processes. Collective Intelligence – to make smarter decisions with greater buy-in. Decision Ownership – to ensure urgency and accountability.Decision BehaviorsThe third dimension of the Assessment focuses on the personal conduct that is critical for fast, smart decisions:Trust Behaviors – Trust opens the door for honest communications.Participant Behaviors – Pace and quality require proactive participants.Cognitive Behaviors – Interrogate reality from multiple perspectives.
Joyce “At an ASP event last night in discussion with an Enterprise Architect from Cisco, biggest decision challenge in this complex multistage process is knowing who is accountable for making each decision that the Enterprise Architect function attempts to integrate and align as they moves along a process from Strategy Formulation to Enterprise Architecture to Resource Allocation.”
Three Dimensions (Leland)The Decision Cycle™ Assessment evaluates a group’s capacity for fast, smart decision cycles in three dimensions:Decision StagesThe first dimension of the Assessment focuses on the processes that are critical for fast, smart decisions:Define – Frame the question, problem or opportunity.Generate / Compare – Explore and assess multiple alternativesDecide / Plan – Choose the best alternative and define action steps. Implement / Monitor – Take action and track the results. Review / Adjust - Think about your results and why and course correct.Decision EnablersThe second dimension of the assessment focuses on the means by which you achieve fast, smart decisions:Virtual Tools / Processes – to streamline and accelerate the processes. Collective Intelligence – to make smarter decisions with greater buy-in. Decision Ownership – to ensure urgency and accountability.Decision BehaviorsThe third dimension of the Assessment focuses on the personal conduct that is critical for fast, smart decisions:Trust Behaviors – Trust opens the door for honest communications.Participant Behaviors – Pace and quality require proactive participants.Cognitive Behaviors – Interrogate reality from multiple perspectives.
18. Our people understand and creatively fulfill their roles in the decision cycle. The dynamic nature of today’s environment requires everyone at every level to be self-aware and proactive in the Decision Cycle. This is an example of one of our First Principles, Collective Responsibility --- in action. Everyone working together; everyone understanding and creatively fulfilling their roles in the decision cycle.The group value is that “tolerating, ignoring, or harboring lack of performance in others, or failing to creatively collaborate to make fast, smart decisions, is irresponsible behavior.” The French dramatist Molière, summed it up well, “It is not only what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable."
