No shock here: you have to make decisions in work and in life.
It would seem that the choices you make become more difficult and have greater and more durable consequences as one aged – adopting, right? But many of us had to make at least a few huge decisions as soon as the door leaves, for example by choosing a college and by registering for many years of reimbursement of college loans (or not).
Unless you can hang on to someone else to manage your shit, you have to make choices.
Not to say that allowing someone else to manage a subset of decisions is a bad thing, but there is the extreme example of never growing up and hoping that your parents discover your life. Likewise, for married couples, ideally, it is not only a person who makes all the choices – for example if your spouse is good for planning trips and you are better to repair the house which is a great division of decision -making efforts.
Anyway, making choices is part of the game. You will literally be in a world of pain if you don't.
And you have a time limit for most decisions. If you continue to go around your mind, things might become very fast.
… A man, being as hungry as thirsty and placed between food and drinks, must necessarily stay where he is and starve to death.
– Aristotle, On the sky
Well, you could try cry about this by initial step.
Personally, I prefer to go directly to a method to do it.
Here are some methods. Of course, there are many more, especially if you enter the field to choose problems to be solved for quality concerns and things like that. But really, I think these three are the best basic methods that can give you a solid start for each work and personal decision.
Yes. You can just choose something at random. Often it is better than the problems that would be caused by the delay of a choice.
Turn a room. Roll the dice. People will think you are wild! Maybe even leadership equipment!
Sometimes doing the wrong choice is better than making the choice. You have the courage to move forward, it's rare. A person who stands at the fork, unable to choose, will never have anywhere.
—Terry goodkind, The first sorcerer's rule
Whatever the staging, a decision must be made. The other affected will adapt. Or go. But generally not.
The drawback is that it is difficult to say beforehand if a random choice will have devastating results on the line.
The randomness goes hand in hand with arbitrariness – perhaps it is not completely random, you had a reason, whatever illogical. As maybe you have the choice between three similar cars, you buy one depending on the color.
But beware of the attraction of the brilliant object!
This method is particularly good for obviously trivial situations. When I was still an intern (or perhaps just hired full-time) during my first technological job after university, we were at a big business dinner in an Italian restaurant. The chief engineer wanted to select the first bottle of wine for the table, but did not know what to get. I think that as a joke, he asked me in front of everyone, me being the youngest person who was not even old enough to drink legally: “Sam what wine should we get?” And without hesitation, I said Cabernet Sauvignon. And that's what we have. The chef laughed and said, “Who says I can't delegate?” But why did I say this answer? I don't remember, I think I just had this wine before and that I have already seen it on the menu. In this case, a rapid arbitrary decision was very appropriate (and funny).
When not to go to chance
If you are a manager in a technological company responsible for choosing, for example, with which chip a device should be developed, random should be increased. You may have experience with a special flea or chip company. But the choice of the chip according to your personal favorites may not be good enough. This happened in a company for which I worked – an intermediary tried to force his favorite chip. I did not like this decision because this manager did not do any technical work, so a better quick decision would have been to ask at least one of the engineers for whom they have a preference.
A positive variation: later in the same company – when we plan to make me program a microcontroller in a mobile robot manipulator – the decision of a chip was to use something similar to what other members of the company had already used. And my choice of programming interfaces (IDE and JTAG Debugger) was facilitated – I have just copied what the EES (electronic engineers) had already used even if the philosophy of the software group was to avoid windows almost at comic levels, but I was there, I use everything that is. Worked very well. Not entirely random, not entirely arbitrary, but did not require a lot of energy / decision -making time.
A simple list of things you need can go greatly to choose one option or another.
And you might be surprised that the choice that meets all the requirements (or hope) is not the one who is the favorite in your mind. Maybe the right choice is not “the brilliant object”.
On the other hand, there are sometimes too many requirements or simply idiots. There was a small robot project on the ground on which I worked for many years, and in small, I mean that it can be transported on my back. It was said that the requirements of the original government which flowed down included a trailer hitch!
If you can find a reasonable and not too large list of requirements, you will be ahead of the game.
You would be surprised at the number of technological projects on which I worked with zero or incomplete written requirements. So I fill the whites even if I'm just supposed to be a coder. This is worth the time, and often it only takes a few hours (maybe even minutes), compared to dreading a lot of technical work in the coming weeks / months / years. Yes, the requirements are changing, but having a written list of current requirements is super useful if you really want to release a product at some point.
I have written and implemented according to the requirements successfully in technological jobs … but also in my personal life. For example, when I made the initial decision to move across the country in California, I then had the very difficult task to find a place to live. I made a list of requirements, then I put the really important tenders at the top of the list and the least concerned at the bottom – the “desires”. I also knew who would be my roommate and also incorporated their needs and their desires into the list. In the end, it worked surprisingly well since I did this from Boston, and we moved to Los Angeles. Yes, there are some problems with the building but there are with each building.
A decision matrix allows you to unload the preferences of your mind in a number table. And then, like a slightly less mysterious yes board, it gives you an answer.
This does not require any special tool or knowledge of mathematics. You can even write it by hand. The simplest way is with a spreadsheet. Let Excel tell you the way.
As a bonus, you now have a document to show people who come to sniff later by wanting to know how we arrived at this decision.
To make one, you need a finished list of your options. Do not continue to add more, sit simply and determine the full list of options – but do not delete prematurely from the list, let the table speak.
You then need criteria – in two requirements, a list of somethingPerhaps the features of the choices even if not all the choices have these features. Ideally, you also attribute weights so that the most important criteria have the largest weight.
Here is a screening sheet screenshot based on a model that I found here By doing a quick search. I am sure you can look for many other models or simply make a simple yourself, you don't have to have fun. Ask your favorite IA cat for more information.
In this example, option B is the best choice.
The game is invented and the points do not matter.
–What line is it anyway?
Although it may seem mathematical, there is an arbitrariness in a decision matrix – you invent weight values. And the punctual notes. However, it is also a great advantage.
If you are part of a team that chooses an industrial robot, and you are the one who must, for example, configure and program the robot controller, then it is your chance to adjust the weights / dimensions to make your future much healthier. It does not matter that other people who are not close to the code prefer other choices with different controllers because it is not those who will do the work. And if you can explain it, it will be easier to maintain – and even better, more robust – they will start to come to your decision strategy.
Do not give in too easily.
Once upon a time in a biotechnology company, we had to buy a new industrial robot arm that I would program and integrate. About five or six options from various companies have been placed on the list. I investigated them all. I had a manager who literally wanted to choose the brilliant.
But with my practical decision matrix and a quantum of persistence, I influenced the decision of my choice n ° 1 and I saved myself – and others – many headaches and this sub -project developed a swell.
