How to make decision

How to make decision

Improve Your Decision‐Making Skills

Reach a Consensus

Make Your Heart and Mind Work Together

Make Good Decisions

Make a Decision Using a Quantitative Scoring System

Articles about Decision Making

Know What You Want

Choose Between Two Things

Stop Regretting Your Decisions

Make a Quick Decision

Do the Right Thing

Stop Overthinking at Night

Improve Your Decision‐Making Skills

Reach a Consensus

Make Difficult Decisions

Make Better Decisions

Make Your Heart and Mind Work Together

Make Good Decisions

Stick to Your Decisions

Make up Your Mind

Avoid Having Your Decisions Changed by Others

Make Tough Decisions for Yourself

Make a Decision Using a Quantitative Scoring System

Learn how to make better decisions with 3 powerful habits

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You’re faced with new decisions every hour of every day.

Sometimes, it’s as simple as choosing which shoes to wear to work. (Not always so simple with a commute and multiple events in a day.)

But when important moments that require decisive action come around, it can be difficult to make the right decision without a process to do so.

Let’s explore how to make better decisions and how to cultivate the habits that will help simplify the process.

Why is it important to make good decisions?

Individual decisions might not seem to matter that much in the moment.

Usually, it’s the repercussions of those decisions that have an impact on your life. Making better decisions leads to better results (and fewer repercussions). Better decisions might leave you with more options and flexibility. Conversely, a good decision might shut off other options but open up a new opportunity.

When you make better decisions, it also means you’re learning from your mistakes. And learning from your mistakes is a crucial aspect of personal development.

Making good decisions is also important in your work life, and for your work-life balance. It can help you further your career and create better results from your work. Good decision-making can help you achieve greater job and life satisfaction.

You cannot lead without being decisive. And when you’re a leader, your decisions will affect other people, not just you. Because of this, it’s important to consider all the moving pieces and potential consequences of a decision.

Framing the situation and weighing the alternatives are important steps in making decisions like a multi-billion-dollar corporation.

3 habits that will make you a better decision-maker

Are you wondering how to make big decisions effectively?

Here are three habits that will show you how to make better choices in life and work.

1. Leave yourself some space to reflect on your mistakes (and successes)

You won’t learn from your mistakes if you don’t take the time to reflect on them. That’s why you should make it a habit to carve out a regular time in your schedule for reflection. This can also help improve your mental fitness.

This isn’t just to dwell on your mistakes or beat yourself up about bad decisions. Use it as a time-boxed period to honestly review your day’s decisions and consider why some proved to be better (or worse) than others.

Reflect on what caused you to make mistakes: maybe an assumption was way off or you didn’t seek any other input. Maybe you didn’t give yourself time to think or you reacted out of fear. Analyze the situation and look at other possible alternatives you may have had. What did you learn? What will you do differently tomorrow as a result?

You won’t be able to take back your mistakes. But you can make it a habit to learn from those decisions in order to improve your decision-making skills.

2. Analyze your own self-confidence

It’s important to have confidence, especially when you’re showing up for a new role at work.

But overconfidence can negatively impact your decision-making process. In medicine, studies show that overconfidence can lead to diagnostic errors.

To keep your overconfidence in check, make it a habit to analyze yourself regularly. Are you 100% confident that you know exactly what you are doing? If you are, you might be suffering from overconfidence.

We can be 100% committed to our decision while still acknowledging how much we don’t know or control. Stay humble to the unknown. That will ensure that you still consider other possibilities and seek out other perspectives?

If you notice that you are becoming overconfident, start seeking out other people’s feedback to get a new perspective.

You won’t be right all the time, even if you believe you can be.

On the other hand, if you notice you are not confident, challenge that self-doubt. Consider finding ways to build more realistic confidence. This is especially important if you experience imposter syndrome.

3. Become aware of your mental heuristics

Heuristics are mental shortcuts that people use to make quick decisions.

Heuristics can be helpful by:

However, heuristics can also lead to cognitive biases. One example is the availability heuristic. You’ll be more likely to make a decision based on information that pops into your mind quickly.

So, if you’ve recently read several news articles about toxic managers, you’ll be more likely to find toxic behavior in the leaders around you.

Because of this, it’s important to understand what heuristics you use. Those heuristics could impact your daily decision-making process.

When you know what they are, you can pause and analyze the effect they are having on your decision-making. This takes some effort because our heuristics feel comfortable and natural to us. They feel right.

Take a step back and examine what other possibilities existed that you didn’t choose or even consider. How might the outcome have been different? This will help you calibrate whether your heuristics are helping you make better decisions or not when the time comes.

Make it a habit to recognize when you jump to conclusions and question why you jump to certain conclusions or make certain decisions.

10 effective decision-making tips

Developing the right habits is important in order to make good calls. But what can you do when you’re finally confronted with a tough decision?

Here are 10 decision-making tips to nudge you in the right direction and help you learn how to make good decisions faster:

1. Imagine yourself one year into the future

When you’re faced with a decision that you’re unsure about at the moment, try to imagine what the future will look like. Make a plan for one year in the future, and even five years into the future. It’s important not to get caught up only in the immediate results of your decisions.

The immediate results won’t necessarily let you know whether you’ve made a poor decision or not.

Think about one decision and how this will impact your future. Consider all aspects that you can think about. Then, compare with other decisions.

Where do you want to be in one year? Or in five years? And how do these different decisions impact what you want?

While this one-year jump isn’t the only factor you should consider when making a decision, it’ll help you brainstorm how the current situation can help you get what you want.

For example, let’s say you need to choose between a new job offer and keeping your current job.

Look at where your current job could take you. Compare that to what the new offer could do for you a year for now. Which one is closer to what you want?

2. Write down your goals

The previous one-year exercise can be helpful when making important decisions. But that’s only the case if you know where you want to be one year from now.

If you don’t, how will you know which decision will take you closer to your goals and which is a bad decision?

That’s why you should take some time to sit down and write your goals and create a personal vision statement that aligns with your goals. These goals should be both personal and professional.

Let’s continue the previous example about a new job offer. If you know that your goal is to become a leader at work, writing it down can help you figure out which path will get you closer to that a year from now.

If the new job offer will give you a better salary but fewer opportunities to improve your leadership skills, then you know that you’re better off staying in your current position.

3. Identify at least four alternatives

Unless you need to choose between two decisions, take some time to identify at least four alternative choices you could make.

Even when you believe there are only two decisions, try to think outside the box and see if other alternatives exist. The more alternative decisions you know about, the more you can make an educated decision.

On the other hand, if you only consider two options, you may miss out on another decision that would have gotten you close to your goal.

Let’s say you’re mediating a dispute between two people at work and need to choose one side of the story to believe. But there are likely other alternative points of view for this story.

You can seek out other people who witnessed the argument before you arrived. As a result, you can establish a story that isn’t based on just one person’s word or the other. You can come to a decision that involves compromise.

4. Figure out what you don’t know

Whenever you make a decision, there will likely be unknown factors to consider. But you don’t know what you don’t know.

That’s why it’s important to take a moment and seek out what those unknown factors are. Once you figure out what you don’t know, you can take the necessary steps to know more.

The more you know, the more you can make a good decision based on all the facts.

Let’s say you’re still considering your two job options from before. You realize that you don’t know what leadership opportunities are available at the new job. Without this information, you won’t know what decision can lead you closer to your goals.

You decide to reach out to a friend who works there to ask them about the leadership opportunities.

5. Step away from the situation

When you’re deep in a situation, it may be difficult to see all the facts clearly.

Step away from the situation you’re trying to make a decision about. Use the distance to do all the steps from before, like coming up with alternative solutions or imagining yourself one year from now.

For instance, let’s say you need to build a team for a difficult project at work. You’re stuck in your office trying to figure out who the best people are for the job.

Simply step away for a moment and change your perspective. A change of scenery can provide you with the clarity you need to make better decisions.

6. Face your mistakes

It’s not easy to face your mistakes. But doing so can inform your future decisions.

When it’s time to make a decision, think back on previous similar situations when you may have made a mistake. Figure out what things you did or didn’t do that contributed to your mistake.

In the previous example, perhaps you assembled a team in the past that didn’t perform well. By facing your mistakes, you realized that you let your friendship with a team member influence your decisions.

Now you’re aware of your biases. You can make new decisions with those biases in mind.

7. Seek out feedback

Getting someone else’s feedback can expand your perspective. It can reduce your own biases and uncover possibilities you didn’t consider.

In the team-building example, have someone you trust weigh in on your potential team ideas. Someone else could spot a flaw in the team that you wouldn’t have noticed otherwise.

8. Look at the long-term and short-term consequences

While looking one year into the future is a great exercise, it’s also important to consider the short-term and long-term consequences of a decision. How will this decision impact your life a week from now?

What about a month from now? What about three years, or even 10 years?

For example, if you’re considering moving across the country, you know this will have a long-term impact on your life. It’ll also affect your life in the short term.

Write down possible scenarios in the short term and long term for whether you stay or go.

9. Analyze data

Try to find objective data points to round out your knowledge of the situation. For example, if you’re considering a cross-country move, you can look at data points like employment rates, crime rates, and the cost of living.

These data points can help you paint a clearer picture of what your future will look like if you move.

10. Identify your values and stay true to them

This is critical. Your values are the North Star and guardrails, especially when making decisions in a fast-changing or uncertain world. Some people find a personal vision statement helpful for maintaining alignment between values and action. Goals are important, but personal values and work values matter, too.

People who find value and meaning in their work occupy more senior and skilled positions.

Let’s go back to the decision about choosing between your old job and a new offer. If you value inclusive leadership, but your current workplace doesn’t operate that way, perhaps it’s best to take the new offer in a more inclusive company.

Learn how to make better decisions

In addition to these tips, you can also improve your decision-making skills with the help of coaching. You can overcome decision fatigue, make better decisions faster, and feel confident in your choices.

BetterUp’s expert coaching can help you identify your strengths, achieve your goals, and learn better decision-making so you can reach your full potential.

How to Make Decisions: A Guide for When You Can’t Choose

Making decisions is a crucial part of life, but many people struggle to make decisions, in one way or another.

Some people, for example, are naturally indecisive, and therefore struggle to make decisions in a timely manner, even when it comes to trivial things, such as choosing what to eat for dinner. Other people, on the other hand, rush into decisions too fast, and therefore make decisions that are bad for them, especially when it comes to things such as their finances or relationships. And finally, some people are fine when it comes to making decisions in general, but get stuck when it comes to certain life-changing decisions, such as what career path to follow.

Because making decisions is such an important part of life, and because we often struggle to do it properly, learning how to make decisions is highly beneficial. As such, in the following article you will learn about the process that you should use to decisions, and see guidelines, tips, and techniques that will help you make better decisions faster and more easily. This will help you both in general, as well as if you’re struggling with a specific hard decision right now.

Table of contents

Why it’s hard to make (good) decisions

There are many reasons why it’s hard to make decisions, and especially good, fast ones. Most notably:

Overall, there are many reasons why it’s hard to make (good) decisions, including the complexity of the decision-making process, the cognitive effort associated with decision-making, and related issues such uncertainty, the fear of missing out, and cognitive biases. These concepts, together with related ones, are explained in more detail in the dedicated article on the topic.

How to make decisions

The decision-making process

To make decisions in an optimal manner, you should generally include all the following steps as part of your decision-making process:

If necessary, it can be beneficial to move back and forth between these steps and make modifications as you go along. For example, if you discover that none of the available options will help you achieve your main goal, you can go back and reassess your goals, and then gather more information accordingly.

In addition, you can add any of the following optional steps to your decision-making process, in order to improve your ability to make decisions:

Once you finish making a decision, you can move on to take action, and act on the decision that you’ve made.

Note that, in addition to following this process, there are other things that you can do to improve your decision-making. As such, in the following sub-sections you will see additional tips and techniques that will help you improve your decision-making.

Each sub-section focuses on a different type of decisions, including good decisions, fast decisions, and hard decisions, and there are generally tradeoffs between the different approaches that are recommended below. For example, good decisions might take longer to make, while fast decisions might not be as good.

It’s up to you to decide what to optimize for, and you will likely prioritize different things in different situations. For example, when it comes to making relatively trivial decisions, such as what to order at a restaurant, you will generally want to prioritize speed, but when it comes to important life-changing decisions, such as which career path to follow, you will generally want to prioritize making the best decision that you can.

How to make good decisions

To make good decisions, you should generally go through every step of the decision-making process before you reach a decision, and make sure to conduct each step properly. To help ensure that you do this, you can go through each step in a way the forces you to be explicit with your reasoning, for example by outlining it aloud or in writing.

When doing this, you should watch for issues that could interfere with your decision-making, such as cognitive biases, and deal with them, primarily through the use of appropriate debiasing techniques. For example, if you’re in a situation where the egocentric bias is making it hard for you to see things from a different perspective, you can use self-distancing, and ask yourself what advice you would give to a friend if they were in your situation. This particular technique can be beneficial in a wide range of situations, and as one book on the topic states:

“The advice we give others, then, has two big advantages: It naturally prioritizes the most important factors in the decision, and it downplays short-term emotions. That’s why, in helping us to break a decision logjam, the single most effective question may be: What would I tell my best friend to do in this situation?”

In addition, once you have picked your preferred option as part of the decision but before you take action, you can play the devil’s advocate, and argue either against that option or in favor of the options that you’ve decided to forego. This can help you identify potential flaws in your decision-making, and will help you make sure that the option you’ve picked is truly the best one for you.

Finally, note that your intuition can sometimes help you make relatively good decisions, especially in situations where you can’t conduct a comprehensive decision-making process, for whatever reason. However, the risk of relying on your intuition is that it is relatively opaque, meaning that you won’t necessarily understand why it caused you to make a certain decision, and so you might not be able to confirm that you made the best choice. As such, while intuition can be a powerful tool, you should be wary when using it, and only do so when you believe that it’s the best option in your particular situation.

How to make fast decisions

Sometimes, your goal shouldn’t be to make the best possible decision, but rather to a relatively good decision quickly. This is particularly important in certain cases, such as if you habitually delay making trivial decisions, or if you delay making decisions for so long that it leads to significant negative consequences for you.

Fortunately, there are many techniques that you can use to help yourself make decisions faster:

There’s no need for you to use all of these techniques. Rather, you should find the ones that you believe will help you the most, and focus on implementing those when trying to make decisions faster. As you make progress, you can try to use new techniques from the list, and figure out which ones work for you and which ones don’t.

How to make hard decisions

When it comes to making a hard decision, you should try to deal with it as you would other decisions, by conducting a proper decision-making process. However, if you find yourself in a situation where you still can’t choose, there are various techniques you can use:

Common questions about making decisions

Should I let my emotions dictate my decisions?

You should take your emotions into account as part of your decision-making process, but you shouldn’t let your emotions cloud your judgment in a way that causes you to make bad decisions. For example, when it comes to deciding whether to end a romantic relationship, you should take into account important emotional considerations, such as how you feel about your partner. However, you should not let your feelings for your partner lead you to conduct a flawed decision-making process, for instance by causing you to ignore serious negative things that this person did to you.

How can I be sure I’m making the right decision?

You can be relatively certain that you’re making the right decision by taking care to conduct a proper decision-making process, which includes all the relevant steps such as gathering information and evaluating options, while also taking care to avoid common issues, such as cognitive biases, that could interfere with your decision-making. In addition, you can increase your certainty in your decision by reviewing your decision-making process after you complete it, and by asking for feedback on it and on your decision from relevant individuals.

However, that said, there will be many situations where you can’t be absolutely certain that you’re making the right decision. To avoid regret and indecision, it’s important to accept this, and to tell yourself that you’re making the best decision that you can, based on what you know.

What if I make the wrong decision?

No matter how careful you are in your decision-making, there is almost always the possibility that the choice that you make will be “wrong” in some way, meaning that it will lead you to a worse outcome compared to some alternative that you had available. Because this is generally impossible to avoid, all you can do is accept the possibility that it will happen, and try to make the best possible decision that you can, by following a proper decision-making process.

As one book on the topic states:

“We can’t know when we make a choice whether it will be successful. Success emerges from the quality of the decisions we make and the quantity of luck we receive. We can’t control luck. But we can control the way we make choices.”

That said, in many cases, you’ll discover that even if you do make the wrong choice, the outcome isn’t as bad as you thought, for example because the decision is partly reversible. If you do find yourself having made the wrong decision, your main goal should be to avoid obsessing and punishing yourself over it. Instead, you should figure out what you can learn from your experience so you can make better decisions in the future, and then start looking at what you can do to move forward past this decision.

How can I avoid regretting my decisions?

There are two main ways to minimize regret toward the decisions that you make. The first is to make decisions in a way that minimizes the likelihood of future regret, and the second is to change the way you view your decisions after you’ve made them.

When it comes to making decisions in a way that minimizes regret, you should do what you can to make reasonably good decisions, which means, for example, that you should generally follow all the necessary steps of a proper decision-making process. This reduces the likelihood that you’ll make bad decisions that you’ll later regret, and will also help you know later that you’ve made a good decision given the circumstances and what you knew at the time.

In addition, where appropriate, the book “The Paradox of Choice” suggests that you can adopt the standards of a satisficer, by trying to make decisions that are good enough given the circumstances, rather than those of a maximizer, who tries to always make the best possible decision.

The book also suggests that to minimize future regret, you should reduce the number of options that you consider before making a decision. This aligns with research on the topic, which shows that regret generally arises from comparisons between the option that you select and the alternatives that you chose to forgo.

Finally, when it comes to making decisions in a way that minimizes regret in the long-term, note that people often regret indecision and inaction more than they do bad choices. As noted in The Paradox of Choice:

“When asked about what they regret most in the last six months, people tend to identify actions that didn’t meet expectations. But when asked about what they regret most when they look back on their lives as a whole, people tend to identify failures to act.”

This is also reflected in other sources, as such as the following:

“Studies of the elderly show that people regret not what they did but what they didn’t do.”

However, keep in mind that regret is influenced by various other situational and personal factors. For example, inaction tends to lead to more regret when a decision is made in response to negative prior outcomes (a phenomenon referred to as the inaction effect), while taking action tends to lead to more regret when making decisions in response to prior outcomes that were positive, or when making decisions in isolation (a phenomenon referred to as the action effect). This is important to take into account when trying to make decisions in a way that minimizes regret, because it means that decisions that you make should be tailored to you and to your specific circumstances, rather than based entirely on general guidelines.

When it comes to minimizing regret after you’ve made a decision, instead of focusing on your disappointments and on the negative aspects of your decision, you should focus on its positive aspects, as well as on what you learned from it and on how you can implement what you’ve learned from it when it comes to future decisions. If possible, you can also consider the fact that the decision that you’ve made was the best one possible given the circumstances.

Furthermore, you should remind yourself that even if you regret your decision, you might have also ended up regretting your decision even if you chose differently. For example, although taking action can lead to more regret in the short-term than inaction, this regret tends to decrease over time, while regret over inaction tends to increase, which means that inaction tends to lead to more long-term regret. Accordingly, if you take action and end up feeling regret because it didn’t end up with your desired outcome, you should remind yourself that you would likely have ended up with more regrets in the long-term if you didn’t take action at all.

Finally, to reduce your regret, you should also keep in mind how complex life is, and realize that it’s rare for any single decision to be entirely irreversible or to change the course of your life as much as you might initially think. As stated in The Paradox of Choice:

“I have a friend, frustrated over his achievements in life, who has wasted countless hours over the past thirty years regretting that he passed up the chance to go to a certain Ivy League college. ‘Everything would have been so different,’ he often mutters, ‘if only I had gone.’

The simple fact is that he might have gone away to the school of his dreams and been hit by a bus. He might have flunked out or had a nervous breakdown or simply felt out of place and hated it.

But what I’ve always wanted to point out to him is that he made the decision he made for a variety of complex reasons inherent in who he was as a young man. Changing the one decision—going to the more prestigious college—would not have altered his basic character or erased the other problems that he faced, so there really is nothing to say that his life or career would have turned out any better. But one thing I do know is that his experience of them would be infinitely happier if he could let go of regret.”

How do I stick to a decision once I make it?

There are several things that you can do to make sure that you stick with your decisions, and not constantly change your mind:

However, keep in mind that, while these techniques can be beneficial, you should use them carefully, and with proper consideration; don’t stick to an initial course of action simply because it was your first choice, if it becomes clear that a better alternative is available, unless there’s a compelling reason to do so.

How can I make sure that I act on my decisions?

The key to making sure that you follow through on your decisions is to formulate your decisions in a concrete and actionable way, since doing so increases the likelihood that you’ll follow through on them in a timely manner. For example, instead of just deciding that you’re going to “start exercising”, decide that you’re going to start exercising as of the beginning of next week, by going to the gym on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, at 6 PM, and spend at least an hour working out.

Other techniques can also help you make sure that you act on your decisions. Most notably, you should identify likely obstacles that will prevent you from taking action, and then formulate potential solutions to those obstacles. For example, if you decide to stop talking to someone after breaking up with them, and you know that you might end up sending them a message in a moment of weakness, you can delete their number from your phone in advance, to help your future-self follow through on your initial decision.

Summary and conclusions

To learn more about why it’s so hard to make decisions in the first place (especially good, fast ones), read the associated article on the topic.

How to Make Better Decisions

This article was co-authored by Julia Lyubchenko, MS, MA. Julia Lyubchenko is an Adult Counselor and a Hypnotherapist based in Los Angeles, California. Running a practice called Therapy Under Hypnosis, Julia has over eight years of counseling and therapy experience, specializing in resolving emotional and behavioral problems. She has a Certificate in Clinical Hypnosis from the Bosurgi Method School and is certified in Psychodynamic Psychotherapy and Hypnotherapy. She earned an MA in Counseling Psychology and Marriage and Family Therapy from Alliant International University and an MSc in Developmental and Child Psychology from Moscow State University.

There are 12 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page.

wikiHow marks an article as reader-approved once it receives enough positive feedback. In this case, several readers have written to tell us that this article was helpful to them, earning it our reader-approved status.

This article has been viewed 196,186 times.

Life is full of decisions, some small (what do you want in your coffee today?) and some big (what career path should you pursue?). But even though decision-making is something we all do every day, making good decisions isn’t always easy. The good news is that it’s actually possible to learn how to make better decisions that are more likely to have positive outcomes and help you accomplish your goals, and we’ve put together some tips to help you get started.

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Your typical day is a string of choices.

What route should you take to work? Which task should you cross off your to-do list first? Should you work at your desk or in the common area? What should you pick up for your colleague’s birthday celebration?

And then there are those big, career-making, business-driving decisions that keep you up at night, like how to price your product or what features to release next.

You’re making decision after decision all the time, and it can really start to wear on you. (This is something formally known as decision fatigue, if you want to be extra impressive at your next trivia night.)

Fear not, there’s good news ahead: decision making doesn’t need to be so draining and anxiety-inducing. Refining your decision-making process can help you make effective judgments without a lick of stress.

Did we pique your interest? We thought so. We’re covering everything you need to know to make positive and painless choices.

What exactly is decision making?

We don’t really need to tell you what decision making is, but we will. It’s the mental process you go through to make a choice or select a course of action. It applies to small choices (like what band to listen to on your commute) and big ones too (like whether or not you should relocate for that job). It’s also a process you’ll go through whether you’re making individual choices or for your entire team.

Let’s stick with a simple example for clarity: you’re hemming and hawing over whether you want a salad or a burrito for a quick lunch.

Now, you’d cycle quickly through some different activities to make your choice. Maybe you’d think through some criteria – like what’s cheaper or what you ate most recently. Or, perhaps you’d ask the opinions of your team members who might want to order in something too.

Those things (plus many more!) are all part of your decision-making process – the series of steps you follow to land on your final pick.

It really is pretty simple for those smaller, seemingly inconsequential choices. After all, no matter how delicious it is, a burrito probably isn’t going to be a life-altering thing for you.

But, more complex decisions often demand a more complex process. That’s why there are tons of diverse frameworks and models for decision making, from a good, old-fashioned pros and cons list to a matrix that will help you evaluate your choices. We’ll dig into some of the most common frameworks in detail a little later.

The benefits: Why good decision making is a good thing

When you’re already breaking into a sweat about needing to make a choice, evaluating and refining your decision-making process probably isn’t top of mind.

We get it. However, there are a lot of benefits to making sure you have a rock solid decision-making process in place, including:

A better thinking cap

Decision making doesn’t happen naturally for a lot of us. It can be tough (and that’s exactly why this guide exists). Making a choice requires that you rely on your critical thinking skills because you need to collect and analyze information in order to decide which way to go.

Get more done

How much time would you save if you didn’t have to toss and turn over every single choice? Refining your decision-making skills gives a major boost to your productivity; you can feel good about the direction you’re going in less time and with far less stress.

Greater trust and confidence

The ability to make a swift and well-informed decision, as opposed to waffling over how to move forward, inspires confidence from your team. After all, how much would you trust a leader who couldn’t seem to make a choice and navigate you through a tricky scenario? Not much, right? That might be why 63% of employees say their leaders are somewhat or not at all credible.

Decision-making models to streamline your thought process

Alright, you get that effective decision making is important. But, that doesn’t mean it’s easy.

Take comfort in the fact that you don’t have to wing it. Here are a few of the most common decision-making models, a brief rundown of what they are, and some possible challenges you’ll want to keep your eye out for.

Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model

This model doesn’t actually direct you to a final choice, but it’s a great first step in helping you sort out what to do next by leading you to one of five possible decision-making processes that can get you to your end goal.

This model is helpful when you need to make a decision for your entire team. You’ll kick off this exercise by answering a series of seven different “yes” or “no” questions. After working through a decision tree, you’ll arrive at a code that identifies the ideal decision-making path for you and your team. MindTools, a site that offers leadership and management resources, explains that these include:

This model relieves the pressure of feeling paralyzed by your decision, as it will point you to some actionable next steps. However, some critics say that it can be a little too rigid and doesn’t leave much room for you to customize according to your situation or opinion.

The Ladder of Inference

It’s easy to jump to conclusions when making decisions, but the Ladder of Inference maps out a thought process you should go through to avoid relying on your own biases and assumptions.

Using this framework, start at the bottom of the ladder and work your way up without skipping any rungs. These steps include:

Working your way through each rung helps to combat your natural inclination to jump to conclusions. A challenge of this model is that it’s tempting to select data that supports our existing assumptions, which is known as a recursive loop.

For example, if you already have the impression that one of your team members is lazy, you might be way more attuned to all of the times she passes the buck and completely overlook her real contributions.

DACI Framework

You’re not always making decisions by yourself. In the workplace, a lot of the choices you make affect other team members and departments, which means you’ll be dealing with a lot of (often competing) opinions and ideas about which way you should go.

Here at Atlassian, we’re big fans of using the DACI framework to clarify roles for group decision making and prevent having too many cooks in the kitchen.

With this framework, you assign people to different roles:

This is helpful for making sure that everybody knows where they stand and how much pull they have. On the flip side, it could make people wary of stepping on toes, so they may take a retreat from being actively involved in the decision-making process.

Decision Matrix

One of the toughest aspects of making decisions is juggling all the variables. For instance, if you’re choosing between two freelancers for a copywriting project, you might need to think about their expertise, cost, and upcoming availability.

However, what if one freelancer seems awesome to work with but doesn’t ace all of those categories? How can you choose?

A Decision Matrix requires that you assign a weight (basically, an amount of importance) to each of those factors and then do some simple math to make a choice that best satisfies all of your criteria.

It’s a great way to think through all of the important aspects that could influence your choice, but turn on your bias radar. We’re not saying you will, but it’s easy to weigh certain factors more than others without realizing it, which can affect your final outcome.

Level up your decision making skills

Beyond relying on frameworks, how else can you transform yourself into an expert decision maker?

To start, get a baseline of where your decision-making skills currently rank. Take this brief assessment to evaluate your existing way and uncover what might need work.

Regardless of how you score, it’s always helpful to get your hands on some tips. So, let’s go over a few important reminders to hone your decision-making capabilities.

Beware of biases

You probably noticed that we mentioned biases or jumping to conclusions a couple of times when we were discussing the different decision-making models. That’s because the pesky assumptions you already have can quickly creep in and sabotage your ability to make sound decisions.

Cognitive biases are natural, so basically, kind of unavoidable. One of the best ways to keep them in check is to consistently question the information you’re using to guide your choice.

For example, if you’re already counting a team member out from being able to contribute to a shared project, ask yourself why. Did they mention that they were too busy or are you assuming that? Do they really not have the expertise you need or have you not dug deep to learn all that they can do?

Challenge yourself to be as objective as possible. It also never hurts to run your thoughts by someone else to get an unbiased opinion.

Use data as your guide

Another great way to keep biases at bay? Rely on data to inform your decisions.

Can you get your hands on metrics about how a similar project performed in the past? What about feedback on what went well and what didn’t? Are there any sort of insights that would support going one direction over the other?

When the hard facts are collected, data doesn’t lie, which makes it a bias-proof resource you can rely on to guide your decisions.

Think through short-term and long-term effects

When you’re stuck in the middle of your decision-making process, tunnel vision is almost inevitable. You become so focused on just choosing your way forward that you might not necessarily think through the ripple effect it’ll inspire.

Imagine that you’re deciding whether or not to extend the timeline for a project your team is working on. It’s crunch time, and you’re worried you won’t get it completed by the deadline.

If you only think through short-term effects, pushing out that deadline seems like a no-brainer. You’ll remove some stress from your team’s plate, give them more time to produce quality work, and make them feel supported.

If you zoom out further and analyze the long-term effects, there’s much more to consider than initially meets the eye. Delaying that timeline will undoubtedly push back the later projects you already scheduled, and you’ll start to create the expectation that deadlines are suggestions rather than rules.

Thinking short-term and long-term adds some complexity (we know, it’s the last thing you want), but it will help you make the best, most logical decision.

Speak openly with your team

When you’ve finally made a decision, you’d love for your team to rally together and put the pedal to the metal.

But here’s the thing: your team won’t be ready and raring to carry out your decision if they don’t totally understand the context around it.

So, after you’ve come to your conclusion, let your team know how you got there. What factors did you consider? What do you hope to achieve along this path?

Looping your team in on your decision will make them feel like a part of the process (rather than the recipients of one-sided directions) and will help them do a better job of following through on that choice. In one 2015 survey, 57% of respondents said that they would perform better at their jobs if they understood the company’s direction.

How decision making works in project management

We’ve covered a lot about making decisions here. So, let’s boil all of this down into some simple steps you can follow.

Know that all of the frameworks and tips we’ve already covered can be incorporated into the basic process we’ll outline below. Think of the following steps as a blueprint that you can tweak and add to based on the specific choice you’re making.

Let’s say you’ve secured budget to add somebody new to your team. You have a lot of needs, so you need to figure out which type of position needs to be filled most urgently. Here are the seven steps you’d follow:

That’s the decision-making process in project management in its simplest form. But again, there’s room to add some of the other elements we’ve discussed here.

For example, maybe you’ll make use of a Decision Matrix in the step where you have to evaluate your choices. Or, perhaps you’ll consciously set aside your own bias against bringing in another copywriter and keep it as an option because you know your current copywriters are spread thin.

Remember, the above is a very barebones decision-making process. You can and even should tailor or add to it.

Take (most of) the stress out of making decisions

You need to make decisions on a daily basis – from small, short-term choices to major ones that impact your entire team.

Are you huffing into a paper bag just thinking about it? Have no worries. especially since stress has been shown to change how people make decisions. And hey, you need to be clear-headed here!

So, set down the paper bag and use this as your guide. You’ll be well on your way to making efficient and effective decisions (with as little stress as possible).