50% of decisions made in organizations are bad. One reason they fail is that decision makers are not very good at identifying the key criteria for their decision. These are slides from "Building your criteria list" video (http://offers.transparentchoice.com/building-your-criteria-list) which will give you some concrete steps you can take without any fancy software or analytics to make better decisions. These tips apply whether you are doing: project prioritization, vendor selection, R&D portfolio management, technology selection, or hiring a key employee.

1. Building Your Criteria List
Making Better Decisions.
Together.
Stuart Easton
stuart@transparentchoice.com

2. Questions:
• What percentage of decisions are bad?
• What percentage of important criteria will you
identify?
• What percentage of the top 10 most
important criteria will you identify?
• How many of the “top 5” criteria will you ID?
• What percentage of decision makers miss the
most important criterion?

3. Percentage of bad decisions?
• 50% of decisions are bad
• 33% are never implemented
• Of those implemented, 50% are
discontinued within 2 years

4. There is hope!
Good process
•AHP
•Wide collaboration
Software
•Overcome human constraints
•Collaboration and transparency
Training and support
•Become a better decision maker
•Help change organizational behaviour

5. Successful Decisions
Untrained
Decision
Maker
Trained
decision maker
supported by
software
50%
80%

6. Percentage of criteria you ID?
• A decision maker with
domain expertise will
typically identify only
50% of the important
criteria in a decision
• How confident are
you that you can do
better?

7. Percentage of top 10? Top 5?
• A decision maker
with domain
expertise will only ID
60% of the top 10
criteria
• 80% of decision
makers will miss at
least one of the top 5

8. How many miss the most important?
• A decision maker with
domain expertise will
miss the most
important criterion
35% of the time

9. Surprised?
50%?
50%?
50%?

10. Our goal today?
If you want to increase the number and quality of criteria…
Workwithateam
Use our tricks and tips

11. Our goal today?
If you want to increase the number and quality of criteria…
Workwithateam
Use our tricks and tips

12. This video
• Help you identify as many criteria as possible
• Make better decisions today
Set goal
Identify
Alternatives
Define
Criteria
Prioritize
Criteria
Score
Alternatives
Review and
Decide
• Other videos cover;
• Creating scales for your criteria
• Prioritizing your criteria

13. Tricks and tips
Brainstorm
Research
Community

14. Brainstorming
• What do you want to see?
• Imagine the future / wish list
• React to alternatives
• Consequences of good / bad outcome
• What are your constraints?
• What would stakeholders worry about / want to
achieve? (e.g. What would your customers want
to see? What would your competitors consider?)
• Strategic and Company Values

15. Research and Community
Confidential
• Analysts
• Vendors
• Case studies
• Industry groups
• Conferences / trade shows
Research
• TransparentChoice
• LinkedIn, Quora
• Specialist communities
Community

16. What do I mean? Why do I care?

17. Our goal today?
If you want to increase the number and quality of criteria…
Workwithateam
Use our tricks and tips

18. Teaming
• Diverse team
• More is better…
• …within reason
Brainstorm
Separately
Review and
Organize
Team
Brainstorm
Combine and
De-dupe Approve and
Publish
Clearly
Define
The Goal

19. Next Steps
• Decide you don’t want be average!
• Use the Tips and Tricks on every significant
decision – it’s worth the extra few minutes
• Broaden your team and really USE them!
• Learn more:
– http://transparentchoice.com
– http://blog.transparentchoice.com