Making Smart Choices: How to Use a Decision Grid to Avoid Analysis Paralysis

Posted By: Tom Morrison Community,

Have you ever found yourself frozen by too many choices? When they all seem to have their merits, it’s easy to become bogged down and even paralyzed with indecision.

 

So, how do you keep from getting stuck in analysis paralysis when you have to make a big decision that turns on choosing one option out of many?

 

I suggest a five-step process:

Step One: Make a list of the criteria that are most important in making a decision.

Step Two: Create a table or spreadsheet with your criteria down the side and your options across the top.

Step Three: Rank each option against each of the criteria and add up the results for each option. (A five-point scale works well. If you want to weight some criteria as more important than others, do that.)

Step Four: Reflect on the results and tweak your criteria if you want.

Step Five: Make a decision.

 

Here’s what a decision grid looks like in a real-life example:

 

A table of work paperDescription automatically generated with medium confidence

 

I’ll be the first to acknowledge that this decision-making grid approach is a very simple tool. Most good tools are in my experience. I have found in using it is that a lot of the value comes through identifying the criteria that are most important to you in making the decision. Putting them down on paper or screen and ranking your options against them keeps you from spinning endlessly.

 

What big choices are you sorting through right now? What criteria are most important for you to consider in making a decision? 

 

 

Written by: Author Unknown, for the Eblin Group Blog.