One of the best things I learned while reading the book “Get Smarter” by Seymour Schulich is the Decision Maker principle. It is a very effective means of deciding whether something is worthwhile doing or not. Apparantly, Seymour Schulich uses this technique for decision making quite often. I find it quite practical in my day to day and am starting to find myself using it more and more each day.
Essentially, the “Decision Maker” as it is aptly termed is actually quite simple. What you do is essentially list out the decision as follows:
1. Take a blank sheet of paper and list out the decision that you are considering by writing it down at the top
2. Underneath the decision that you just wrote down, list out “Advantages” as a heading on the left side of the page and the “Disadvantages” as a heading on the right side of the page.
3. Next, start listing out each advantage underneath the “Advantages” section. Beside each advantage listed, put a score (from 1 to 10) with 10 meaning that it is very important and 1 is not that important. Repeat this for each advantage you can think of.
4. Now start doing the same thing for the disadvantages listed in the “Disadvantages” section (similar to the previous step). Beside each disadvantage listed, put a score (from 1 to 10) with 10 meaning that it is very important and 1 is not that important. Repeat this for each disadvantage you can think of.
5. Finally, here comes the fun part. Once all the advantages are scored and all the disadvantages are scored, accumulate the grand total for Total Advantages and Total Disadvantages. Compare the Total Advantages and the Total Disadvantages. If the Total Advantages are more than 2 times the Disadvantages, the proceed with the decision. If it is Total Advantages are less than the Total Disadvantages, then don’t do it, or think really hard about doing it.
Here’s an example. Recently I had to make the tough decision of whether or not to go on a 1 week cruise vacation away from home. The reason this was a difficult decision for me was because I am currently working on a high priority / tight timeline project. I was contemplating this decision for several days flip flopping between going and not going. I finally decided to apply the “Decision Maker” to this decision and here’s how it went: Decision:- To go to a cruise vacation with the family or not with an extremely busy work schedule for high priority projectAdvantages
- Will really really enjoy it. Would be the first time I take my 1 year old son to a trip away from home (Score 10)
- Will enable me to relax / recharge with the hectic schedule at work (Score 3)
- Will allow me to use up some vacation days that I've been accumulating (Score 2)
Total Advantages: (10 + 3 + 2) = 15
Disadvantages
- Cost – Trip will cost me about $2000 for the family (Score 3)
- Lose productivity for 1 week for critical project (Score 4)
Total Disadvantages: (3 + 4) = 7
Decision: Total Advantages (15) is greater than Total Disadvantages (7). Since the Total Advantages are greater than the disadvantages, go to vacation!
That’s it! Its that simple.
Fred
