Finally, there is the phenomenon often referred to by different names but which manifests itself in a manager’s inability to make a decision. If any single fact permeates an organization at the workforce level, it is that the manager can’t make a decision. Decision making is one of the key aspects of good leadership and management. See Figure 8.
12Henry Lachouque,Napoleon’s Campaigns.
Figure8.The‘‘phenomenonofdecision-making’’schema.
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Why is decision making so critical? It is because it sets the course of the project, such as when the course is set by the captain of a ship. A captain will call out the heading to the helmsman, after the quartermaster calls out the calculations of a heading. To ensure that everyone on deck understands clearly, the order is repeated and acknowledged, with an ‘‘Aye, 154 degrees, aye.’’ The captain doesn’t run below deck and ask others for advice. He knows from his base of experience and training what to do, if he is a good captain. If not, you run aground.
The phenomenon of decision making is the first subject of Immanuel Kant’s critiques.13 The German wordUrteilis a big word, meaning to pass sentence on, to judge, to make a private value judgment, to form an opinion, to decide, and so on.
In the military, whether in officer or noncommissioned officer school, the message always shouted at and drilled into a candidate is, ‘‘Make a decision!’’ This message is to force a person into getting used to making decisions. The services know that the young NCO or officer will make mistaken and wrong decisions, but with years of experience the decisions will be made on sound knowledge and will become improved, more accurate, and better all around. How does this really work?
Since this is not a book on philosophy, but a book on applied cognitive dynamics in the development of computer software-intensive projects, I’ll use simple terms.
There are two types of decisions:14The first one is called ana prioridecision, and the second is called ana posterioridecision, both based on the subject’s deci- sion making. Drawing carefully on our past experiences is called an a posteriori decision. If we make a decision based on an incomplete set of data, knowledge, or personal experience database, or simply ignore our experience in haste, it is called ana prioridecision.
I personally don’t trust my a posteriori decisions sufficiently not to force the participation of as many different viewpoints as possible, so that I can understand the problem or object better. It is probably appropriate to say that we all accept the fact that most of the time our decisions are based on our knowledge and experience.
Many of us also know that we sometimes make a decision in spite of the fact that we know it is a wrong decision; in other words, ‘‘we knew better’’ and regretted it later.
It follows that sound decisions are a posteriori and are based on experiences, which to Immanuel Kant are located in wells, pools, or ‘‘database files’’ of experi- ence in our minds. There are a number of these files of experiences in our minds and memories, which we call the decision reference database. There could be a great number of these files, almost an infinite number, depending on the years of experience, education, age, and varied work and life history of the owner of the decision database.
Some of these decision database files are, for example:
Life experience
Academic discipline/education
13Immanuel Kant,Kritik der Urteilskraft(ein Kritik des Erkennens). The Critique of the Ability to Make Decisions. 1790.
14Ibid.
Apprenticeship-acquired technology Management
Administration Organization Communication Leadership
Architectural design Ethics
Methodologies Understanding people Work estimation Software standards Languages
Cognitive mechanics and philosophy
Now, all of these files are important to the management of a successful project, because they give the project manager the initial reference data set when confront- ing a problem in need of a solution. The manager-architect can analyze the situation and know with relative certainty where to go to get more information on a subject, and how to assemble all the relevant people to get an even clearer understanding to support hisa posteriori impression. All solutions are not perfect, nor complete.
However, when a problem has been thoroughly examined from as many sides as possible, the object has been enhanced sufficiently enough to provide what I call an acceptable reality for a relatively sound decision. Once this has been done, the likelihood of having to backtrack on a faulty design later is minimal. The fewer mistakes we make in our decisions, the lower the cost of the project.
We accumulate our particular experience databases at individual rates, based on the time and effort spent seriously pursuing the acquisition and storage of clean data (sound experiences) in each one of these files. Some of these files are full, such as for example, the academic discipline/education file, when one is a world-class physicist with the degree of Ph.D. and perhaps a Nobel Prize. However, some of the other files, or wells of experience, are only half-full, and some are empty, such as the file on software architectural design, leadership, apprenticeship, management, and administration.
When a decision is made rationally, a posteriori, that decision is based on a value judgment formed as a result of the synthesis of all experiences drawn from the individual’s experience files. With a little luck, if his files are sufficiently full in all the categories needed for that particular decision, then that decision is an effective one.
Thea prioridecision, however, means that the process of forming a value judg- ment based on a synthesis of the sum of data in the experience data files has been bypassed. Such a decision is faulty, because it either bypassed the experience files completely, if they exist, or there were insufficient experience files in a number of
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the categories needed for a sound decision. It could also be true that only a few files were available, and out of these only a small number were sufficiently complete.
I may have suspected in my early life some of the cognitive mechanics that form the underpinnings of decisions, but it took Immanuel Kant to validate my suspi- cions. The truth is, of course, that we would all like to be perfect in every field.
Unfortunately, we are not, nor can we be. The higher one goes in management, the broader the requirement for many experience files in the experience database of the individual. Engineering firms require engineers at the helm, and scientific research organizations require scientists at the helm. Rare are the individuals who can bridge the distance between broad-based knowledge and detailed expertise.
There are a very few on the Bell curve; they are in the outer 1.9%, and they are the genius exceptions who have been provided by nature with the added reserves of physical and mental energy to perform at both ends of the scale.
Yet companies appoint the wrong managers and destroy themselves in the pro- cess, as managers have immense impact on the success or failure of a company.
During recent decades we have seen TWA, Pan Am, and Eastern Air Lines all go down the drain, not to mention other companies of the recent high technology scandals. You can be sure of one thing, it was due to the manager and the manage- ment, not the workforce.
The dynamics remain the same, however. In management, as in technology, there is always a solution to every problem, and it takes a good manager to see that a crisis does not occur. The good manager is always on the job and anticipates, much like a good general in the field, watching every move the enemy can make, and looking for indicators of these moves and feigns.