This document discusses different types of decision making and provides examples from Yammer, a tech startup. It discusses strategic, tactical, and operational decisions. It describes Yammer's data-driven approach to decision making, involving frequent testing of small changes to quickly iterate based on customer feedback. Yammer breaks projects into smaller pieces to test hypotheses faster through an agile process. This enables flexible organizational changes to best develop products customers want over competitors.

1. CHAPTER 11
“MAKING DECISIONS”
THOMAS WHITE
ANH
DANA
DAVID
BRANDON

2. Data-driven decision making
propels Yammer to edge of Agile
and beyond

3. DEFINITIONS
Decision making = refers to making choices among alternative
courses of action – which may also include inaction
Programmed decisions = decisions that occur frequently
enough that we develop an automated response to them.
Decision Rule = Automated response to problems that occur
routinely.
Non-programmed decisions = unique, non-routine, and
important. These decisions require conscious thinking,
information gathering, and careful consideration of alternatives.

4. Strategic
Decisions
Should we merge with
another company?
Should we pursue a
new product line?
Should we downsize
our organization?
Top Management
Teams, CEOs,
and Boards of
Directors
Tactical
Decisions
Operational
Decisions
What should we do to help
facilitate employees from the
two companies working
together?
How should we market the new
product line?
Who should be let go when we
downsize?
Should we merge with
another company?
Should we pursue a
new product line?
Should we downsize
our organization?
Managers
Employees
throughout the
organization
Level of
Decision Examples of
Decision
Who Typically
Makes Decisions

5. Data-driven decision making propels
Yammer to edge of Agile and beyond
“As the co-founder of a tech startup, Adam Pisoni knew surviving in the land of
digital disruption boiled down to two things: One, figuring out what customers
really want (rather than what they say they want); and two, building those
products faster than the competition.”
“so Yammer threw tradition out the window and opted instead for what Pisoni calls
post-Agile: a data-driven, collaborative engineering environment that experiments
on just about everything, including organizational structure.”
STRATEGIC DECISION

6. Data-driven decision making propels
Yammer to edge of Agile and beyond
TACTICAL DECISION
“What was holding Pisoni and his team back? The answer started to take shape
when one of Pisoni's engineers introduced him to Conway's law, which essentially
states organizations create products and services that are reflections of themselves.
What needed to change was how the organization operated.”
"You can't test fast enough to have the data be meaningful," he said. That's why
breaking down bigger projects into smaller ones is key. Smaller projects mean
more flexibility, enabling engineers to move from hypothesis to testing to
iteration and back to hypothesis quickly, Pisoni said.

7. Making Rational Decisions
Rational decision-making model = A series of steps that
decision makers should consider if their goal is to maximize
their outcome and make the best choice.
Decision criteria = A set of parameters against which all of
the potential options in decision making will be evaluated.
Alternatives = Other possible solutions to a problem in a
decision-making process.
Analysis Paralysis = A decision-making process in which
more and more time is spent on gathering information and
thinking about it, but no decisions actually get made.

8. 8) Evaluate
the Decision
7) Implement
the decision
6) Choose
the best
alternative
1) Identify
the problem
5) Evaluate
the
alternatives
2) Establish
decision
criteria
3) Weigh
decision
criteria
4) Generate
alternatives
Rational Decision-Making
Model

9. Data-driven decision making propels
Yammer to edge of Agile and beyond
“As the co-founder of a tech startup, Adam Pisoni knew surviving in the land
of digital disruption boiled down to two things: One, figuring out what
customers really want (rather than what they say they want); and two, building
those products faster than the competition.”
"It dawned on us that in order to iterate on a product quickly, we have to be
prepared to iterate on the organization quickly," said Pisoni, chief technology
officer and co-founder of the enterprise social software company Yammer Inc

10. Making Creative
Decisions
Creativity = The generation of new ideas that are
original, fluent, and flexible.
Fluency = The number of ideas a person is able to
generate.
Flexibility = How different the ideas are from each
other, if individuals are able to generate several unique
solutions to a problem, they are high on flexibility.
Originality = How unique a person’s ideas are.

11. Dimensions of Creativity
Fluency
CREATIVITY
Flexibility Originality

12. The Creative Decision
Making Process
Step 1
- Problem
recognition
Step 2
-Immersion
Step 3
-Incubation
Step 4
-Illumination
Step 5
-Verification
and
Application

13. “Rather than build on top of a search feature customers didn't
like in the first place, the data convinced engineers to think about
why search wasn't driving interest and to work out the kinks. To
that end, the company used A/B testing, a method enabled by
cloud computing that compares the behavior of a randomly
selected group of users given access to new features against
those who weren't. Each modification to the product is tested.”
Data-driven decision making propels
Yammer to edge of Agile and beyond

14. Questions ????
What are some business related decisions that
you have had to make?
Need questions