In our previous two blogs we looked at how we can leverage our synch meetings and encourage executive agility to reduce our decision latency.
In this blog we will conclude our discussion of practical ways to improve your decision latency by looking at ways to make your decisions flow.

One of our goals with Agility is to achieve flow. Unfortunately, the way that many organizations make their decisions impedes flow at all levels from the team to the team-of-teams to the portfolio. There are a number of things that we must build into all levels of our organization if we want to reduce the time taken to make and act on decisions.

These include:

• Reserve capacity to act
• Make decisions at the last responsible moment
• Trust but verify
• Treat our decisions as hypotheses
• Communicate through communities, actions and demonstrations

Decision latency is composed of two elements: the time to decide and the time to act. In the first two parts of this blog series, we looked at ways to speed up the decision-making process through improved synch meetings and executive agility. This is only going to be effective if the teams affected have the capacity and ability to quickly act upon the decisions made.

Figure 1 shows three illustrations of organizations where decisions are made quickly. Unfortunately, in two of them the ‘time to act’ is ensuring that they have a poor decision latency.

To achieve a good decision latency, it is essential that teams at all levels of an organization have the capacity to act on the latest decisions.

Although this is an integral part of all agile ways of working, it’s depressing to see how many organizations refuse to allow their teams (at any level of the organization) to respond quickly to external decisions or reserve capacity to make their own decisions, let alone act on them.

If teams are over-committed, then not only their flow but their decision-latency will suffer.

Note: the clock on the ‘time to decide’ starts once making the decision becomes necessary. There is another reason that the ‘time to act’ can become extended –the decision is not actionable at the time it is made. We’ll look at this in more detail in the next section.

Make Decisions at the Last Responsible Moment

Defer decision-making until the latest possible point; just before failing to act would cause harm or eliminate a vital alternative.

To have a good decision latency it is important that we make our decisions at the correct time based on the best available information. Remember if we decide to do a project in January but don’t start the project until December, we have poor decision latency.

One aspect of decision latency that is often overlooked is the adverse effects on decision latency of making decisions at the wrong time. This can be illustrated by comparing the cost of deciding (which typically decreases over time as our experience and knowledge grows) with the cost of deferring (which typically increases over time as the impact of deferring the decision starts to cause problems and incur penalties).

Trust But Verify

Trust people to make their own decisions but verify they are producing the desired outcome.

It is better to let teams get on with things rather than delay them waiting for the great and the good to make decisions for them. Rather than reserve the right to make and / or approve all the decisions on their behalf trust the teams to make their own decisions but verify them by attending demonstrations and reviews.

TRUST = AUTONOMY

VERIFY = FEEDBACK

Trust provides teams with the autonomy they need to become innovative, high performing teams.

Verification provides the feedback you need to validate their decisions.

A quick plan, do, check, adjust cycle is required to minimize the impact of any incorrect decisions, something that is built into all Agile ways of working. As discussed in Part 2 of this series of articles, this will require active ‘executive’ involvement in the relevant team’s demonstrations and reviews.

Treat Our Decisions as Hypotheses

Decisions are just the considered assertion that acting in a certain way will produce the desired outcome. Treat all decisions as the hypotheses they are.

A decision is a choice or judgment made after considering different options. It is the act of reaching a conclusion or committing to a specific course of action. Regardless of the amount of time and effort involved in the decision-making process there is always the possibility that it is the wrong decision.

Our overall attitude to the decision makers should always be:

We trust your decision, but we will verify it by building and demonstrating something.

And the attitude of the decision makers themselves should always be:

We believe in our decision, but we will verify it by building and demonstrating something.

As decisions are fed into our teams, they should be immediately reflected in the team’s actions and manifest in their next demonstration and / or delivery. For long-term decisions where the outcome significantly lags the action then applicable measures and performance indicators should be put in place to ensure that the impact is visible.

Trust but verify works in both directions; it is not just a management principle for leaders when working with teams but a principle that all teams should apply when working with leaders.

Communicate through demonstrations and communities

Decisions that are not effectively communicated will not be acted upon. Communicate your decisions through visible actions and not just words.

It’s amazing how often the time to action is extended (sometimes exponentially) by poor communications. Make sure that you live and breathe the decisions that you make. Lead through actions, rituals and behaviours that embody the decisions that have been made rather than relying on structural hierarchy and directives.

Take every opportunity to actively demonstrate that the correct decision has been made, that you are embodying the decision, and that the desired outcomes are being achieved.

Use communities of practice and other informal mechanisms to spread the word, showcase the resulting actions and create others that also embody the decisions made.

Use the demonstration and reviews built into your way-of-working to reinforce and verify the decisions made.

This is of course in addition to the use of synch meetings as decision-making forums (as discussed in the first blog in this series) and ensuring that all planning sessions are conducted with full knowledge of all the latest decisions.

Remember: It is your job to ensure that everybody affected understands and acts positively on the decisions made, starting with yourself.

Wrap Up

We have now looked at all nine mechanisms to help us improve our decision latency.

 We have one final blog in this series where we will conclude our discussion by considering the impact of decision latency in the age of AI.

The SAFe Blog

Interesting thoughts and insights from SAFe Fellow Ian Spence