You need to make decisions every day in business. Every single one of them — big or small — can impact the success of your business.
You’re often confronted with making a decision when a problem or opportunity arises. When a decision needs to be made, there is definitely a right and a wrong approach to choosing which action steps to take.
We understand the pressure that comes with decision making in business. That’s why we created a guide to business decision making for you. Let’s dive into it!
Use a Decision-Making Model
We make thousands of decisions every day but some end up more important than others. The decision-making process in business involves a lot of pressure. That’s why it’s beneficial to choose a formal process to follow, with specific steps.
A decision-making model usually involves setting a goal, collecting the information you need, and properly weighing the alternatives. A formal process guides you through these steps and makes it easier to involve other people and present results to stakeholders.
The benefits of a decision-making model are:
- Less uncertainty and second-guessing
- Easy to share decisions and process with others
- Follow an easy roadmap for every decision
As a business owner, you want to make good decisions. They last longer, they eliminate conflicts of interest, and will help you get closer to your goals.
Before we dive into the steps, always keep your end business goal in mind as you go through any decision-making process. It can be easy to get side-tracked. At the end of the day, each decision should take you a step closer to the final business goals.
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Steps in a Decision-Making Process
Here we have outlined a simple decision-making model you can use.
Follow these steps to make a rational business decision:
- Identify your goal and need for a decision
- Collect the information you need from different sources
- Identify the top realistic choices and viable alternatives
- Evaluate choices and alternatives against relevant criteria
- Make a decision and execute it
- Evaluate the decision afterward
This is only one simple model. There are tons more out there.
There’s even business intelligence (BI) to make business decisions using data science. Knowi is one example of this.
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Keep Improving Your Business Decision Making
Take a deep breath. It’s a lot to take in.
We have one final word before you head back into the business world: keep improving your business decision-making process.
The best way to do this is by incorporating evaluation into your model. Every time it’s used, you can revisit the process and how it led to the outcome. Then you can retweak it for future use.
Even better, capture some metrics along the way that show how successful the process was. This will help support your evaluation.
We hope this guide has been useful. If you need more tips and guidance on running a business, don’t hesitate to check out our other articles on our blog!
