If you had to mention one thing describing the era of digitalization, what would it be? I'd say the need for speed. Competition tightens and changes within industries happen faster than ever before. For decision making this obviously means that decisions should be made quicker - and hopefully just the right decisions.
To ensure the decision really is the right one, managers and directors need to gather insight from the substance experts - no one want's to make a decision without knowing enough about the matter. In this sense the digital era increases the need for collective decision making - for example the CMO, the CTO, the CIO (and / or the CDO) and the CEO need to co-operate efficiently to reach the best decisions. In general there are at least three challenges characterizing collective decision making in the digital era: Lack of shared time Because of the need for speed, the key experts are too busy to give proper input to the decision making. Meanwhile the management struggles in getting the key people round the same table and therefore the need for speed is actually slowing down the decision making which again increases the need for speed. The cycle is ready and in the meantime the risk for a delayed decision increases. The more agile competitor has probably already made the decision while the others are still searching for empty slots in their calendars. Inefficient (and expensive) meetings If the management happens to get the key people together to discuss about important topics requiring decisions, the meetings are often inefficient and the shared time is not very well spent. Often people without required expertise are invited to the meetings just in case and the total cost of a single meeting is rarely calculated. On the other hand digital devices often get more attention than the actual meeting topic. Bad meetings is a popular theme for blogs and articles - my earlier post stresses the importance of proper facilitation. Lack of shared views In deciding on complex matters, numerous experts with different backgrounds and agendas need to work efficiently together. Reaching just the right decisions requires that the participants have shared understanding on the matters - for example pros, cons, consequences, risks, opportunities and so on. Since proper facilitation methods are rarely used in (management) meetings, the participants might leave the room without a shared understanding and the decisions are then made without proper commitment. Often the lack of shared time and inefficient meetings are actually causing the lack of shared view since the group doesn't have enough time to concentrate on the essentials. What can be done differently? Obviously decision making varies between organizations and some of them are more developed when it comes to digitalization. Still generally speaking it's easier to make small decisions than large decisions. Splitting the large decision items into smaller human sized decision points helps to retain the agility in the decision making and allows one to constantly identify and rate the best ideas - which is essential in gaining competitive advantage in the digital era. It's also easier to reach a decision involving small group of people instead of a large one. Therefore involving only the right people makes it easier to come up with shared understanding about the matter - also leading to higher commitment to the decisions. While digital services and tools allow managers to involve large groups into collective work, involving just the right individuals often brings the best ROI. Using time and place independent online solutions between (and even instead of) the meetings helps to better leverage the limited time. Proper online facilitation combines the open discussions with ratings and prioritizations and valuations allowing the key people to give their input when they have the time (where ever they are located) as well as identify the best ideas.
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Today’s business world is drowning into PowerPoint slides - especially into the ones with too much information and bad design. It’s a pity since many business managers and executives are actually very good at illustrating ideas in a simple way: drawing sketches on flip boards during meetings. And usually those work well during meetings - but where do the drawings disappear afterwards? Why wouldn't they work in business presentations?
After meetings the same people usually turn the simplified sketches into corporate style complicated PowerPoint presentations; bullet point lists, too much text and various sized boxes because “the slides have to look professional”. In other words (to generalize just a bit) “the same as we've always done here.” Unfortunately "professional looking" often means (in addition to boring...) increased amount of information and less simplicity causing audience to loose the key points. Creating presentations with the same sketches as in the meeting rooms, has many advantages - for example: 1. Differentiation. Very few people create sketched presentation and therefore these presentations stand out of the crowd. When it comes to business presentations, the crowd is at least 30 million presentations worldwide - each day. The differentiation happens inside organizations but even more if the presentations are shared in social media. Since the sketched presentations stand out of the crowd... 2. The audience remembers them better. According to a Stanford Business School study, whiteboard style visuals cause higher recall in favor of PowerPoint presentation especially in sales use. The drawings are also found to be more interesting and engaging even few days after having seen the presentation. 3. Learning by simplifying. Creating a sketched presentation is not just about delivering a different visual look. A good sketch forces the creator to really think what’s important and what’s not, and to be able to do that, one has to understand the substance. Simplifying complicated matters also takes the focus away from details and let’s the crowd concentrate on the essentials. Therefore sketches suit perfectly in situations where you have to illustrate the big picture; concepts, strategies, processes, dependencies etc. 4. It’s easy and fast. “I can’t draw” is the most used phrase when talking about sketching - and the most false answer. According to Dan Roam (the author of the book “The Back of the Napkin”) you only need to be able to draw six visual elements to create effective visuals - anyone can do that! Then again drawing stick figures and other simple elements with free hand is often way faster than finding the correct PowerPoint settings and styles. Thanks to tablet devices and stylus pens, creating sketches has become both easy and cost efficient, since no extra drawing devices are needed. There are plenty of apps and software in the market for each operating system. Using an app for vector graphics allows one to even finalize the sketches with a computer making things even easier. Since the technology is no longer an issue, the only barriers to climb are courage to try new things and discipline for some practicing. In other words just the things that usually make things hard. According to number of studies and questionnaires, meetings and workshops are more or less the worst things you can spend your time and energy on. To generalize a typical meeting just a little bit:
No matter what you might think about the meeting culture of your organization, you can’t really avoid meetings and workshops. And let’s be honest, even in the 21st century there are still topics that require face-to-face collaboration. Professional facilitation can, however, boost the efficiency of a standard meeting and help the participants to look ahead instead of the rear view mirror [Tweet this]. Today’s facilitator is a multitalented expert who utilizes “traditional” workshop facilitation methods as well as time and place independent facilitation with the help of modern business social media solutions. Methods like me-we-us, the six thinking hats or for example learning café and brainstorming have proven track records in improving meeting and workshop efficiency. Then again for example visual facilitation is an effective and modern – but demanding – way to visualize and simplify complicated matters collectively. When it comes to online facilitation in business social media environment, a project team can manage for example document reviewing and evaluation tasks online. With proper facilitation common views can be reached and even decisions can be made without searching for a time and place which would fit everyone’s calendar. As a result the team actually saves time (and possibly traveling cost as well) from the topics that require face-to-face presence for real. Example: As a team leader you need to make a decision on the targets for the next year. In addition you want your team members (international team, +10 people) to commit to the decision. In traditional world this would mean a lot of teleconferencing and it would take a month or two to find such a time slot that would fit to everyone’s calendar – and still someone wouldn't show up, right? Modern way is to facilitate the discussion in a business social media environment before organizing a meeting or telco. This way the team members’ wishes and expectations for the next year can be collected, shared and prioritized from the business perspective. The shared time in the actual meeting can then be spent on confirming the shared view of the matter based on what’s been discussed online already and planning the strategy to reach the targets. After the meeting the discussion can continue online again. This is just a simple example on how to best mix face-to-face meetings with online facilitated discussions and business social media solutions. As a result all the key experts have chance to participate regardless of where they are located, the discussion has clear targets (thanks to proper facilitation) and it won’t take too much time. Obviously business social media itself won’t solve anything. What matter are both facilitation expertise and perhaps even more the so-called culture of sharing in the organization. In case the employees don’t see value in sharing their knowledge internally, it’s very difficult to get people participating in online collaboration or decision-making no matter which facilitation trick you might have in your pocket. |