Decision Criteria
Imagine your group is charged with selecting a hotel for the company’s annual meeting. After some research the group has found three hotels that are available and can handle an event of this size.
Each hotel provided a proposal with answers to all the major questions you might have. Your group must now select one.
Before everyone in the group starts weighing in with an opinion about which hotel would be best, the group should first deal with a more fundamental question, “What’s most important to us in selecting a hotel?”
Answering this question provides the group with decision criteria. The goal in generating criteria is to help each team member evaluate the problem from the same perspective.
In this example, there are many perspectives which might be considered: Cost, convenience of location, image, friendliness of staff, amenities, etc.
The group needs to decide which 2-3 criteria are most important and use them in making the decision. Another way might involve using all the criteria but giving them different weights. Setting up a decision grid, the group could do a little math to get a numerical result that would provide the guidance it needs.
In any decision, there are usually many potential criteria. Just do not try to make a decision without first considering what they are.
