Making good decisions in the workshop: 7 pitfalls and 4 tips.

 

As a facilitator, you don't just want your participants to contribute actively and creatively. Ultimately, the team should make concrete decisions that will later be implemented. Our guest author, Michael Neubert, has helped more than 1,000 facilitators successfully guide teams through this critical phase of the workshop in his training sessions and individual coaching. In his article, you'll learn how to effectively facilitate votes, selection processes, and team decision-making.

A team event is coming up and everyone should decide together!

 

Why many workshops fail

 

Many workshops involve a lot of hard work. However, when it comes to implementation later on, everything comes to a standstill.

Why?

Because the group often can't agree on concrete measures. Decisions are postponed, watered down, or not made at all – and in the end, everything stays the same. Without clear decisions, even the best ideas fizzle out.

12 methods to moderate teams to reach decisions

There are a number of methods for making decisions as a team. Decision-making methods suitable for workshops include:

• Dot voting (multi-point voting) – democratic, but “blind”
• Content method – Making informed decisions
• Consensus method – discuss until a unanimous decision is reached.
• Consent method – Serious objection vs. “Safe enough to try it?”
• Fist to Five – From “veto” to “perfect solution”
• Voting by show of hands – Simple and quick
• Pairwise comparison – Relative ranking without a scale
• Shifts in the Eisenhower Matrix – Quickly identify the need for discussion
• Giving grades – makes clustering unnecessary
• “Everyone takes 2 favorites” – Pragmatic and engaging
• Decision matrix with criteria and weighting – breaking down the decision
• 1-2-4-all – A classic of Liberating Structures

 

Each of these methods has its strengths and weaknesses. It is up to you as the facilitator to choose the one that best suits your group and the decision-making needs.

Methods are often blamed when decisions fail. Then the common refrain is: "Sticking dots on paper is outdated. It doesn't achieve anything!"

However, the root cause is usually a poorly thought-out overall process or a lack of prerequisites. Therefore, it is essential to first examine the causes of bad decisions in order to accurately select and correctly apply the right method.

 

It's not about sticking the dots: The 7 traps

 

Choice overload

 

The group can become overwhelmed if it is confronted with too many options. For example, if, after a brainstorming session on innovations for electromobility , it is asked to select the 6 best ideas from 127.

In such situations, people tend to look for workarounds instead of making a well-informed decision. This can lead to bizarre results. For example, the option at eye level on the bulletin board might get the most points because it's easy to read. "Poorly positioned" options are then simply ignored.

Your problem as a moderator: Very few participants do this consciously, and if they do, they're unlikely to address it openly. From the outside, it all looks like a clear and conscious decision.

Vote distribution

This phenomenon, also known as vote splitting, occurs when very similar alternatives share points. In a workshop planning the next team outing, for example, the suggestions "bike trip" and "mountain bike tour" might be tied. Compared to a standalone option – such as "museum visit" – they are at a disadvantage.

 

Tactical Choosing

In votes, it can happen that participants don't vote for the option they consider best. Some vote according to one person (supervisor, friend, expert, etc.), while others vote against another.

A well-known example is the HIPPO effect (Highest Paid Person's Opinion), where the opinion of the highest-ranking person prevails, even though it is not necessarily the best solution.

It also frequently happens that participants – consciously or unconsciously – wait until everyone else has cast their vote. Then they step forward last to "vote" in order to "optimally" use their available points.

Law of Triviality

It is more convenient to debate unimportant – but simple – details than to discuss important – but complex – problems. Major decisions are then quickly neglected or postponed.

A classic example is spending hours discussing the color of a logo, while the strategic decision about the target audience is not addressed.

Endless discussions

Some groups tend to discuss endlessly without ever reaching a conclusion. This leaves less time for a well-informed decision in the end.

Even after a decision has seemingly been reached, discussions often arise about the interpretation of the result: Are 5 points from one person worth the same as one point each from 5 people? Can't we also add the votes for option X together with those for option Y? What do we do in case of a tie?

Talkative people and those who don't talk much

In many groups, some participants dominate while others barely get a chance to speak. This imbalance in speaking time can lead to important perspectives being ignored and decisions being made in a one-sided manner.

Poor implementation

Even a well-made decision is worthless if it is not implemented. This often happens for these two reasons:

 

• Firstly, there is a lack of buy-in – that is, the internal agreement and willingness of the group to actually support the decision.
• On the other hand, a lack of resources can also lead to implementation failure.

 

No matter how good a decision is, if it is not implemented, the decision-making process was ultimately in vain.

4 tips for successful decisions in the workshop

How can you ensure that your workshop leads to useful decisions? There are some basic prerequisites.

The foundation: Thorough preparation

You lay the groundwork for a good decision in the workshop during the preceding phases: for example, when gathering the ideas, questions, or problems you will be deciding on. Through your skillful facilitation and the selection of the right workshop method , you ensure that everyone:

• talking about the same thing,
• have the same opportunity to participate,
• stay focused on the essentials and
• They made their contributions understandable and visualized them.

 

Now it is important to structure the options in such a way that they are of a comparable dimension, at a comparable "level".

 

 

A loose collection of ideas – like the example for the team event – can often be meaningfully organized into a hierarchical structure. If necessary, additional terms (here: green) must be found with the team to fully represent the hierarchy.

For problems that have accumulated – for example, those related to working from home – causality is often the key to structuring them.

 

The columns of the "Problem Analysis Schema" can be a useful tool for illustrating causal relationships. Additional terms must be found for empty fields (green).

 

If you now reduce the number of decision options to a manageable level, you have a good basis for a sound decision.

3 questions you need to answer beforehand

 

Three things need to be transparent before a good decision can be made:

• For what reason?
• Who?
• What?

 

It sounds trivial, but in my opinion, it's the most frequently forgotten point: Before any decision is made, everyone should be clear about why that decision needs to be made now. Are we simply determining the proposals we want to use the remaining workshop time for today? Or is it already about deciding which proposals will be implemented?

It's equally important that the group understands who makes the decision. Discuss this point with the client beforehand! In some cases, the rules for working from home shouldn't even be decided upon, as that's the responsibility of company management. The group should simply submit sensible suggestions.

Make sure you formulate a clear question that leaves no doubt about what needs to be decided. This also includes narrowing it down to one of the "levels" or dimensions you determined in the previous step. The questions:

 

• "Which of the proposed home office rules would help you personally the most?"

and

• "What are the most important rules for our group?"

will evoke different responses in the minds of the participants.

Think in advance about what the result should look like formally and how you will proceed in unclear situations.

 

 

Possible forms of a result

 

• 1 “Winner”

 

• Prioritization – ranking the importance of all options

 

• A certain number of "best" or "worst" options

 

• All acceptable options

 

 

Possible results with standard needs

 

• A tie between two or more options
• Mutually exclusive options (in multiple-choice cases)
• The option wins by relative majority, contradicting the wishes of the absolute majority.

 

Clearly regulated process

 

For a decision to be fair and unbiased, the process should proceed as calmly and without interruption as possible. Therefore, it's especially important that everyone understands the rules beforehand. These rules will, of course, depend on the chosen method. Be sure to explain the rules even if you think they're obvious to everyone. For example, I've often experienced the unpleasant situation where a participant initially assumed they weren't allowed to place stickers on "their own" option and then wanted to "take them back" and reapply them.

 

Choosing the right method

 

Choosing the right method is crucial for the success of the decision-making process. Depending on the situation, it can be helpful to break the decision down into two or more steps, for example, to:

• to decide on the different dimensions or hierarchies individually, step by step, or
• First, the number of options is reduced using one method before a final decision is made using another method.

 

 

The methods mentioned at the beginning are more or less suitable depending on the situation. But how do you choose the right one?

 

3 examples of method selection

 

Let's look at practical examples of how to choose the method depending on the situation and requirements:

Quick decision in a short amount of time

 

Imagine you're facilitating a workshop to decide on the theme for the next company event. The group consists of seven people and has brainstormed twelve ideas. There are only 15 minutes left before the workshop ends.

Dot voting – also known as multi-point voting – is ideally suited for this purpose. Each participant receives the same number of points, which they distribute among their preferred options. This allows the group to quickly gauge their opinion and make a decision without lengthy discussions. Dot voting helps to set priorities quickly without overburdening the decision-making process.

 

Reaching consensus on complex issues

 

A more complex scenario: Your company's management wants to develop a new strategy for driving digitalization over the next five years. There are many different opinions and interests, and the topic is complex.

The consensus method is particularly well-suited here. The group discusses and works on the strategy until every participant can support the decision. It's not simply about majorities. Rather, the goal is to find a decision that all involved support. While the method is time-consuming, it leads to viable results that are accepted by everyone and ultimately implemented.

 

Decision considering different perspectives

 

In another scenario, your team is faced with a decision where the participants have different contributions, perspectives, and experiences – for example, when the OKR Planning Workshop aims to answer the question of which qualitative goals should be achieved on the way to MOAL in the next quarter.

 

 

The 1-2-4-all method is suitable here. First, participants think about the question individually (1), then they agree on the best decision in pairs (2), subsequently in groups of four (4), and finally in a plenary session (all). In this way, information, perspectives, or experiences that were not previously known to everyone are gradually brought together. Participants build on the ideas and questions of others. This promotes an informed and well-considered decision, even if the overall picture was not clear to everyone at the beginning.

 

Conclusion: How to moderate binding decisions

 

Successful group decision-making depends not only on the method but also on thorough preparation, clear questions, and a structured process. Each decision-making method has its advantages and disadvantages, and it's your role as facilitator to select the right method and guide the decision-making process. A good balance of structure and flexibility will ensure that your group makes clear and actionable decisions quickly by the end of the workshop.

If you would like to know more about how the different decision-making methods work and what their advantages and disadvantages are, you can find further information here.