Eight Principles to Avoid Analysis Paralysis in Decision-Making

This article presents content originally published in Design Mind, a design journal operated by frog, under the supervision of Mr. Noriaki Okada of Dentsu BX Creative Center.

How do companies like Amazon, Apple, and Disney leverage meetings to accelerate decision-making that drives transformation?

I once worked with a client who wanted to improve their organization's decision-making process. About halfway through the project, the client expressed frustration, saying, "I hired you to design the decision-making process, not the meetings!" I responded by asking, "Then where do the decisions actually get made?" He answered, looking uncomfortable, "...in meetings."

First, identify which meetings are where real decisions are made

There are many kinds of "meetings." In some organizations, decisions are made in the "meeting before the meeting." In others, decisions happen in the "meeting after the meeting." Sometimes decisions are made in the break room, on the golf course, at church socials, or while watching a soccer game.

To avoid falling into "analysis paralysis" (spending too much time analyzing data, etc., and failing to act) in the decision-making process, you need to understand what kind of "meeting" drives decision-making in your organization and design meetings to enable more effective decision-making.

Decision-making is arguably the most challenging aspect of driving change. However, regardless of the specific content of the decision—whether it's "which area should receive the next major investment" or "which characteristics should be prioritized"—failing to properly design the decision-making process leads not only to confusion (which we call "swirling" ), waste, and dissatisfaction, but also to a lack of competitiveness.

Establishing committees for decision-making is a common approach. However, without setting clear objectives and ensuring accountability, delegating decisions to committees not only fails to benefit the organization but can also hinder the advancement of transformation.

To address these challenges, when establishing a committee, we recommend designing it based on the servant leadership approach (the idea that the committee serves the company, not the other way around) and following the eight principles outlined below.

The "8 Principles" for Smoothly Operating Decision-Making Committees

Principle 1: Avoid hasty judgments:
Separate sense-making (meaning and understanding) from decision-making. In other words, practice "divergence" and "convergence" as in design thinking.

Research shows the quality of ideas is directly related to the quantity generated. If you need one great idea, you need ten rough ideas. If you want ten great ideas, you need a hundred rough ideas.

To become comfortable proposing crude ideas without hesitation requires specific training. At frog, we design and deliver various activities—such as collaborative work sessions, research, and user testing—based on this principle to help teams rapidly reach optimal solutions.

Principle 2: Aim for Collective Intelligence:
Ideas generated by a group are always better than those generated by an individual.

When two or more people gather, a group is formed. This group possesses its own distinct personality, inseparable from the personalities of its individual members. Embrace this principle and understand that every idea generated within the group is collective intelligence.

Following this principle shifts behavior away from individuals striving to be "the smartest person in the group" toward the group collectively solving problems and creating something. This principle applies to decision-making organizations and all other types of teams. What matters is not that "my idea" is adopted, but that the group develops the optimal way of thinking.

Principle 3: Delegate to those closest to the work:
Let those most closely involved in the work make the decisions.

This might be one of the hardest things for an organization to execute. It's not uncommon for executive-level decision-makers to get involved in the work, instructing unnecessary rework or verification tasks. Or, lacking the practical or emotional motivation to move the work forward quickly, they proceed ambiguously.

To prevent this, involve the company, engage them in discussions, learn alongside the development team, and reach consensus on the direction of choices. However, the final decision should be left to those most closely involved in the work.

Principle 4: Make Way:
The sponsor's role is to remove obstacles.

The sponsor's primary role is to remove obstacles to decision-making, not to create approval cycles. Sponsors should skillfully coordinate the requirements, environment, and constraints necessary for decision-making and collaborate creatively to accelerate problem-solving.

Principle 5: Discuss the Budget:
Establish checkpoints in the decision-making process beforehand.

Systematic company review and approval are only required for predetermined investment timings. Beyond that, discussions focus on information sharing and determining direction. Regarding budgets, proposals might state: "This initiative has the potential to generate $10 million in profit. We have 20% confidence in this, but investing $100,000 (X dollars out of 100) could increase that confidence from 20% to 50%."

Principle 6: Leave Room for Debate:
Committee-style decision-making requires time and space.

A principle to consider alongside points 3-5 is that major decisions should be made incrementally. For example: "Review budgets for optimal solutions. Let those directly involved in the work decide which is the optimal solution."

Principle 7: State opposition and take responsibility for opinions:
As written in the Bible, "Yes" should mean "Yes," and "No" should mean "No."

When someone in upper management whispers opinions behind closed doors or signals they don't fully support a decision, they can inadvertently hinder change. If you've confirmed resolve in a meeting by asking, "Are we really okay with this?", you shouldn't revisit the discussion or reverse the decision unless critically important new data emerges.

Principle 8: Prioritize "Progress" over "Process":
Moving things forward is paramount.

The final principle is that even if you conduct meetings considering all the principles 1-7 and human behavior models, what ultimately holds the most value is "progress" over "process." That is, things moving forward. To show others that we have the power to transform, demonstrating actual results is the most effective approach.

Amazon's "6-Page Memo" Applying the 8 Principles

A famous example of applying these eight principles is Amazon's "6-Page Memo. " Why is this approach so reliable and effective? Because the "6-Page Memo" cleanly and concisely embodies all eight principles in a way anyone can implement.

What's brilliant about the "6-page memo" approach is that all meeting participants spend 30 minutes silently reading the materials.

Why do you think that is? You're probably well aware of the drawbacks of distributing materials right before a meeting. Haven't you ever received 200 slides at 11 PM for a meeting starting at 8 AM the next morning? That never leads to productive decision-making.

Regardless of the volume of materials distributed beforehand, meeting participants fall into three types:

• Those who thoroughly read the materials beforehand, take diligent notes during the meeting, and have well-considered opinions on next steps
• Those who honestly admit they didn't read the materials or only skimmed them
• Those who lie and say they read the materials, even though they didn't

In other words, you have "people trying to understand the situation now (divergence)" and "people who already understand" in the same space. If you then try to move the group discussion towards a decision (convergence) in that situation, participants will end up in a "swirling mess."

By setting aside time specifically for "reading the materials" as an agenda item during the meeting, everyone can ensure they have time to read them. This also prevents hasty decisions and eliminates the need to speculate about who among the responsible adults has properly prepared for the meeting.

Furthermore, it eliminates the need for the time constraint of submitting materials at least one week before the meeting to ensure everyone has read them. This also prevents the situation where some information becomes outdated within that week.

How to apply this to actual decision-making?

By adhering to these eight principles, you can gather in the meeting room to generate collective intelligence, transforming the meeting into a space for substantive discussion. If participants voice opposing views, take responsibility for their opinions, yield the floor without disruption, and allow those most closely involved in the work to propose solutions within the allocated budget, you can say you've succeeded in prioritizing progress over process.

This article is also published in the web magazine "AXIS".