How we make decisions

Making decisions in a decentralised organisation with no managers is easier than you think …

For how we deal with opportunities for Members to work with clients we have a specific protocol for that – the bun protocol. We have something similar for recruitment decisions.

Why don’t have a well defined decision-making process

We make lots of decisions all the time. Which type of sticky notes to buy? Should our internal fees be raised? Where and when is our next Organa Planning Adventure?

Different types of decisions need a different process. It would be crazy to involve the whole team in decisions like which type of whiteboard pens to buy. And it would be crazy to NOT involve the whole team if we needed to decide on the location of our Planning Adventure.

So it’s not a good idea to have one single well-defined decision process for everything. And it’s not a good idea to try to list all potential decision types and create a well-defined process for each type, the list would be too long and complex, and there would be too many grey areas.

So how do we make decisions?

You don’t need a well-defined decision process in order to make decisions. If that was the case, the world would stand still :)

Instead, we follow these principles/guidelines:

• The person driving an issue owns the decision process.
• A decision is only a decision if there is a “puller” who follows up on the execution. (we use the term “driver” and “puller” interchangeably)
• Important decisions are documented in our decision log.
• Some decisions lead to funded “projects”, like say, a new website. The people involved in something like that form a Productlet. To get funding, there needs to be two “pullers” throughout the whole project. In practice, we seldom have big projects and rarely need to use this model.

Example: If the board is considering to raise the Membership fee, the board drives that question, and therefore gets to pick the decision process.

Example: If I want Organa to collaborate with company X, then I’m the one driving that question and I pick the decision process.

How do I pick a decision process?

Organa uses four decision protocols:

1. Own decision: Decide yourself without talking to anyone.

2. Advice: Ask for input (perspectives, implications) from the team, but then make the decision yourself. It’s likely to be small enough to try, safe enough to fail.

3. Consent: We have a simple version of the Sociocratic Consent model:
   • Proposal presented
   • Round of clarification
   • Seek objection: Objections are either “truly problematic” or “simply unappealing”. If it is “simply unappealing”, the objector is asked to let it go. If it is “truly problematic” it is the objectors responsibility to articulate and clarify the objection based on one of these three categories:
     • It harms our values
     • It harms my ability to do my job
     • It harms the home (the community)
   • Proceed
4. Consensus: Facilitate a decision from the whole team (using consensus, with majority vote as fallback if we can’t reach consensus). For simple decisions, this communication can happen via slack, email or a poll. For more complex or sensitive decisions, face-to-face conversation is better. We usually do those at our unconference.

Some things to consider when choosing a decisions process:

• Who is affected? Only you? You and a few others? The whole team?
• How important is this question to you? How important is it to those who are affected? Is it a critical decision or trivial one?
• Is the decision reversible? Most decisions are. What is the consequence of making the “wrong” decision, and who is affected by that?
• How easy or hard is the decision? How easy is it to reach consensus with all people affected?
• How urgent is the decision? What is the consequence of delaying the decision, or not making a decision at all?
• Who are you? The decision process may vary depending on your perspective – consultant, board member, etc. It may also depend on how long you’ve been at Organa (if you are new and unsure you might need to seek more anchoring from people).
• Is the outcome affected by laws? The board of directors in an Australian company is bound by Australian laws, so some decisions must be aligned with the board of directors.

Example decisions:

• “Paying for a taxi to attend an Organa homecoming (offsite)” => Own decision. Just do it.
• “Acting on advice from a marketing consultant to update our website” => Advice Process.
• “Approving funding for and implementing a new ecommerce solution for our website” => Consent.
• “Forming new company values” => Consensus.

At the end of the day it’s about balancing risk. If you make the decision yourself it will be fast, but you risk a backlash if others don’t support it. If you seek 100% consensus you may get a better decision with better support, but it could take time – especially for questions where people have opposing opinions.

There is no perfect process, so seek a balance between these extremes. We most often end up in the middle of the scale – “Advice Process” or “Consent”.

What if I still feel unsure of which decision process to use?

Here are some options:

• Take a chance! “Better to ask for forgiveness than permission”. Most decisions are reversible, so you don’t really need to be afraid of making the “wrong” decision or using the “wrong” decision process. Just be open to, and accept feedback, and learn.
• Talk to an Organa colleague, for example someone who has been around longer and can give examples of what has worked in the past.
• Check if someone else can drive the question for you (or with you). Preferably someone who is strongly engaged in the question. For example if I want to create a new Agile product course, I might ask another Organa member to pair-drive the decision.
• Escalate the decision to the board of directors. For example “hey board, I want to change our recruiting process, how would we make a decision like that?”. We try to minimise the number of decisions that have to be made by the board, but they can give useful input about who needs to be involved.