Tag: DecisionMaking

Posted on

Field notes: operating the Decision Engine

I’ve written lots of posts this week on decision-making, and that’s because I have run three rounds of The Decision Engine workshop — part three in our Critical Thinking programme. 

The Decision Engine imagines decision-making as a production line that we build and operate. A decision travels through this system — starting with how the question is framed, moving through decision criteria, weighing subjective and objective factors, and arriving (eventually) at a decision.

It’s a model I first helped develop at Think Up during our 2015 collaboration with Arup on the Conceptual Design Mastery programme. Since then, I’ve developed it to account for everything from emotional data and gut feel to AI and emergent behaviour.

But the point is not to turn decision-making into a laborious stepwise process, but rather to build critical insight into our personal and group decision-making. 

Interesting questions that have fallen out of this week’s workshops include:

Should you start with developing ideas or agreeing your decision-making criteria?

Are we deciding — or are we building the mechanism by which other people decide?

What’s the role of subjectivity, and how do we get better at working with it?

When is a good time to decide?

And how do we continuously learn from our decisions.

Plenty to chew on, including whether we could run a day-long, stand-alone course on decision-making in future. Watch this space. 

Posted on

What if we got all the designers together who ever designed a place?

Imagine gathering every designer who has ever shaped a single street for a retrospective design crit?

Every building — from the latest new-build to the medieval cottage still standing.

The streets, the services, the flood defences.

All the engineers (and other humans) who made all the decisions.

What would they discover about their design choices?

What would they regret?

Which decisions would they make again?

What patterns of place might emerge — the things that repeatedly work (or fail), whether we choose to notice or not?

What changes might they observe?

How differently would the place sound to different generations of designer?

And how would they all arrive?

It feels like engineers (and other humans) are constantly redesigning places.

But how do we take the long view?

How do we learn from what has worked — and what hasn’t — over time?

So that from generation to generation, we build a progression of holistic wisdom, not just another round of reinvention.

Posted on

Too soon to decide?

Sometimes, when faced with a decision, it’s worth asking: is it too soon to decide?

In permaculture, it’s common practice to wait a whole season before planting anything. That way, you can observe the full cycle: how the sun moves, where water pools, which areas dry out, and what emerges from the seed bank.

Without seeing the full pattern of a cycle in motion, we risk deciding too early — acting on partial data.

And this principle isn’t just for seasonal systems. It applies to any emergent situation. If we make our decision before more factors reveal themselves, we may find we acted too early.

So how do we know when it’s the right time to decide?

We might try to assess the nature of the change: is it cyclical? Is it reaching a steady state?

But in many situations, we can’t know for sure. That’s why we need to engage for the long term — not just to decide, but to learn to work with system over time. This is when we shift from one-off decision-makers to long-term stewards of systems. Over time we can then tune our instincts for how — and when — to intervene.

Posted on

Decide to remember or decide to forget

When we make decisions in complex scenarios, we can never be certain how they will work out. But every decision is an opportunity to test our thinking and to see how the system responds.

Every decision is a learning opportunity. Each is a chance to learn what happens when I make a decision based on certain factors rather than others.

But only if we decide to remember. 

That means writing down why we did what we did — and remembering to look back the next time we’re making a similar decision.

Posted on

Decide now or decide later?

Sometimes it’s worth designing your decision-making process before you make any decisions at all. Setting your decision-making criteria. Defining the minimum requirements. Figuring out the go/no-go questions. Clarifying your preferences. Determining who decides and who signs it all off. 

And sometimes it’s worth starting with the ideas. 

Wouldn’t it be great if…? 

What if we tried…? 

What would it look like if…?

The first approach creates more certainty. It reduces risk, aids delivery and creates a clearer record of how and why you did what you did. 

The second can create magic. It leaves room for surprise. It allows new possibilities that would never have fitted the plan — but which might just be better.

At some point you always have to decide. 

But when you decide changes what you get.