Course Overview
As a Project manager, you would typically make multiple decisions daily. Decisions could range from, approval of a business case, to evaluating solutions; from choosing the right vendor or team members, to mitigating risks or handling change requests. The project team members, rely on the project manager to provide guidance, and to help them make important decisions. Making good executive decisions requires making tough choices, and those tough choices come with a significant risk, both organizationally and personally.
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
Who Should Attend?
- 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
Module 1: 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
Module 2: Decision-Making Styles
- Choosing a decision-making style
- Autocratic decisions
- Participatory decisions
- Democratic decisions
- Consensus-based decisions
Module 3: 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
Module 4: Project Stakeholder Management
- Involving stakeholders in decisions
- Using a RACI matrix
Module 5: 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
Module 6: 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
Module 7: Managing Ambiguity
- Accepting ambiguity
- Evaluating highly predictable outcomes
- Assessing distinct possible outcomes
- Considering a spectrum of outcomes
- Managing unpredictable outcomes
Module 8: 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
Module 9: 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
Module 10: Making the Decision & Monitor the Results
- Determining who’s involved
- Making the call
- Defining your measures
- Monitor outcome
- Declaring success
Module 11: Decision-making practical case-studies
- Acquisition
- System implementation
- Market expansion