445: Three simple decision-making practices to thrive in continuous disruption – with Alexis Gonzales-Black

How product management teams can better make decisions

Today we are talking about disruptions that impact our product work. Whether it’s supply chain disruptions, the great resignation, AI impacts, market competition or something else, continued disruption is expected. How can we navigate such an environment? 

To help us make decisions in this environment, Alexis Gonzales-Black joins us. She is an organization design expert and author, with experience in organization design, transformation, and team leadership. She is currently leading organization design at August Public and previously at IDEO, Zappos, and other organizations. She also authored The New School Rules: 6 Vital Practices for Thriving and Responsive Schools.

Summary of some concepts discussed for product managers

[2:13] What does an organization designer do?

We look at the factors of an organization like purpose, strategy, structure, process, systems, talent, and incentives. We make sure those factors are accelerating the organization toward its ultimate outcome— its mission and vision.

The cycle of disruption is so fast that it consistently pulls our structure and processes away from what we are trying to achieve. We need an ongoing awareness of sensing and adapting to change at all levels.

[4:35] Tell us about your framework for making decisions in turbulent environments.

First I want to talk about “Why decision making?” Why do we use that as a way to talk to companies and product teams? No matter where we go in any organization, folks have feedback about how decisions are being made. Typically, there’s a lot of dissatisfaction with the way decisions are made in organizations.

Decision making is a great proxy for many other factors in an organization, like trust, empowerment, psychological safety, speed, efficiency, power, and authority. We often use decision making as a concrete way to improve and accelerate teams because it brings in so many different factors of how teams work together.

When we look across all of the research about decision making, we see that three common levers emerge:

* Clear decision ownership

* Explicit decision process

* Decision capture

[6:49] Clear decision ownership

The most ubiquitous decision ownership tool is RACI. It falls hopelessly short of providing the type of clarity that we want it to provide. We end up just documenting the dysfunction of our teams rather than providing clarity about how the decision is made.

We like to introduce single decision ownership. That doesn’t mean that person is making an autocratic decision, but it means you have one decision owner. Who is responsible for shepherding the decision process, for getting the inputs and ultimately making the final call? That level of clarity helps accelerate teams. We encourage folks to consider who is closest to the work, has expertise, and is closest to the data.

A lot of folks default to consensus as the model for decision making because they’re afraid of being responsible if something unforeseen happens. Consensus is overused and misused. It is preferable is for one person to make a decision using the information they have at the time and to have an environment where it’s okay to say, “Oh, maybe that’s not what I would’ve done, but I trust you,” or “Maybe it didn’t turn out the way that we wanted it to, but let’s just learn and pivot moving forward.”

[10:04] What tools do you use for clear decision ownership?

Select the best decision owner for each decision. We use a proposal where somebody on the team says, “You know what? I think Chad is closest to this information. He’s been working on this project and driving this forward. I propose that Chad is the decision owner.”

Have a quick moment to see if there are any objections....