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PROGRESS: A Procedure for Wise Decision Making

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This site will help you to find out more about how to make wise decisions, and provide guidance to how to follow a decision-making procedure called PROGRESS.

To find out about PROGRESS we suggest that you first visit the introduction. After this you might like to visit the overview to gain a bird’s eye view of the procedure.

What you do next depends upon your needs and desires. If you have a decision-making problem that you need help with we have produced three paths you can follow: these guides are called full, medium and quick. The quick guide can be done in 15-30 minutes, the medium guide in 1 –2 hours, and the full guide from 2 hours up. Even if you wish to follow the full guide we recommend that you start with the quick guide to familiarise yourself with the method. Alternatively you could go to the index to see all the exercises in the full guide and see which have been selected for the medium guide. Or you could follow through how we have analysed John’s Case and see if you agree with us.

If you are facing either a personal or organisation problem and would like to find out about how we can help you, either on-line or by meeting us for a personal consultation go to contact us. Do this as well if you would like to find out about training for yourself or your organisation.

You can also find out about courses and events, or let us know of any courses and events you would like to advertise on this site. Links will take you to other sites connected to decision-making and related topics while Theory provides reviews of books and articles and background to PROGRESS.

If you click on UsingThisSite you will be returned to this opening page.

INTRODUCTION to PROGRESS

PROGRESS: A Procedure for Wise Decision Making

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Decisions are made wisely only if certain conditions are fulfilled; without these you are unlikely, except through good fortune, to make a wise decision. Often people talk about a contrast between making decisions based on reason and decisions based on feeling or intuition. In fact good decisions are grounded in both reason and emotion – after all you wouldn’t want your decision to have such major logical holes in it that it will let you down later, nor would you want your decision to be something that you don’t feel is right as you’re feelings may well be a good guide to important aspects of the process. Furthermore if you don’t produce a congruence between your reason and emotions you will be uncertain about following your reason as it will feel wrong, and you will worry that if you just follow your feelings you might be following an irrational course of action. What you need to do is integrate reason and emotion. PROGRESS is built to allow you to do this.

Of course following a wise decision-making procedure doesn’t guarantee us a successful outcome, as there may be aspects of the situation that we are unable to determine, or events may take a turn that we cannot predict, but by following such a procedure we increase the likelihood that the outcome will be successful.

Please feel free to use these pages to help yourself make wiser decisions. Although there are different stages in this process, and a logical order to these stages, you might well find that at certain times in your decision-making process, as you bring new things to light, you will need to iterate back through earlier stages in the process. To make a wise decision you will need to do all of the stages (understand the situation and problem, determine what matters, generate and evaluate options, and implement the solution) but different problems will require different emphases and questions within these stages so be flexible in how you work. For instance we offer many different questions and activities to do in each stage, but you might need to do only one or two. One of the easiest ways to understand and follow what is needed is to see an example of wise decision-making. Try following John’s case, as he works out what he should do with his ill mother. If you would like more help, either on-line or in person, to work through a problem that you or your organization face, or if you would like to organize training for you or your organization, please contact us.

If you are trying to solve a problem your first task, before doing anything else, is to make an initial judgment about the complexity and importance of your problem and whether this is a problem you should be trying to solve by yourself or even at all. The more complex and important the problem the more time you can spend on it. If the problem is not for you alone to solve try to get others engaged in helping. If the problem is not for you to deal with leave it to others. If you’re short of time try the quick guide to quick decision-making.

OVERVIEW of PROGRESS

PROGRESS: A Procedure for Wise Decision Making

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1. Understand the situation and problem.

The problem, and the situation that the problem is located in, are understood accurately, fair-mindedly and fully. Without this understanding any attempt to make a decision is likely to be flawed through making errors about what the situation and problem really are.

2. Determine What Matters.

Think as widely as possible about what values you want to bring about. When you have generated potential values assess which ones matter most weightily. Unless you have thought carefully about what you want to achieve you’re unlikely to achieve it !

3. Generate and Evaluate Options.

Creatively generate options. We easily get stuck in ruts of thinking so you need to be imaginative. Once you have generated a range of options you should select the option that, while based upon the reality of the situation, best captures what you have determined weightily matters. Without both generating and evaluating options you’re unlikely to come up with your best solution.

4. Check your Solution, Work out how to Implement and Monitor it, and Commit Yourself to it.

Once you have made your selection of the best option you need to make a final check on it, and work out how to implement and monitor it. Finally you need to commit yourself to carrying it out. The best solution, if not carried through is not going to be much help to you.

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QUICK GUIDE TO QUICK DECISION-MAKING

PROGRESS: A Procedure for Wise Decision Making

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There are four stages to follow when making a wise decision – even a quick one. You need to (i), understand the situation and problem (ii), determine what matters (iii), generate and evaluate options, and (iv), implement your solution.

If you are very limited for time, or your problem is not so sufficiently serious or difficult, that it requires much thought, here’s a quick way to do these stages. Remember that making decisions quickly and rigorously is more likely to produce a good solution than simply making them quickly, but less likely to produce a good solution than taking more time while doing it rigorously.

Stage 1: Understand the Situation and Problem.

More on stage 1: full version

1. Check you understand the situation. Are there any important facts you need to

find out, are you making any doubtful assumptions, have you got an unbiased view ?

2.Make sure you have a clear understanding of what the problem is that you

want to make a decision about – write down a clear and precise statement

of your problem.

More on stage 1: full version

Stage 2: Determine what Matters.

More on stage 2: full version

1.Make a list of everything that you can think of that matters – what values

should the solution have in it ? What do you want to bring about ?

Try not to miss anything important by making a list of all the parties who are involved in some way or other and make sure you consider potential benefits and burdens to them all.

2.Order this list in terms of how important you think the values are. Put the

values in order if you feel you can, or failing that in categories such as

vital, very weighty, and less weighty.

More on stage 2: full version

Stage 3: Generate and Assess Options.

More on stage 3: full version

1.Generate options. List possible options. After you have come up with the

obvious ones try brainstorming and/or look at your list of what matters and try to devise options that can satisfy the values you identified as vital and very weighty.

2.Assessing Options.

Create a table like this:

	Option 1	Option 2	Option 3	…..
Value 1 (vital)
Value 2 (more weighty)
Value 3 (more weighty)
Value 4 (less weighty)
….

Along the top write your different options and down the first column write the values you want to realize. Put the vital values at the top of the column, the most weighty in the middle and the least weighty at the bottom.

In each cell write whether the option satisfies the value.

Select the option which allows you to satisfy as many of the most weighty values as possible. If different options all satisfy what is most weighty see which options best satisfy less weighty values.

More on stage 3: full version

Stage 4: Implement Your Solution.

More on stage 4: full version

Congratulations! If you have followed the above stages you can have increased confidence in your decision. Start implementing your wise solution and don’t forget to monitor how its going and revise it if needed.

More on stage 4: full version

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MEDIUM GUIDE

PROGRESS: A Procedure for Wise Decision Making

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We have selected for the medium guide exercises that we think are most likely to help with most problems. Included in this are the four stages necessary for any wise decision-making: you need to (i), understand the situation and problem (ii), determine what matters (iii), generate and evaluate options, and (iv), implement your solution. You should be aware that the exercises we have selected might not be the ones that are most appropriate for your problem, so you will want to use your judgment. As you become more familiar with the full guide you will learn to select your own path through it and even devise your own exercises suitable to the problem you are facing. If you wish to use the medium guide you can either go to the Index to get an overview of what is recommended, scroll through the full guide looking at sections marked with an asterix (*), or follow the hyperlinked path through the full guide by clicking on mpath to go to the next item.

As you work through the stages we have provided several tools to help you. At the beginning of each stage and step there is a description of the goal that the stage and step is designed to achieve. Try to keep both this particular goal, and how this goal fits into the procedure, in mind. You can click back to either the overview or the quick guide to remind yourself of what you are aiming at overall, or go to index for a complete list of what is in the full version. Within each stage there are a series of exercises to help you to achieve the goals of each stage. To help you with these exercises you can click on John’s Case which provides a modeled use of the exercise or you can click on Help (not yet on-line) which provides a guide to the exercise. If you are more theoretically minded you can click on Theory (not yet on-line) which has an explanation of the theory behind the exercise. Or you can contact us for more help.

Start the hyperlinked path now: mpath

FULL GUIDE

PROGRESS: A Procedure for Wise Decision Making

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As you work through the stages we have provided several tools to help you. At the beginning of each stage and step there is a description of the goal that the stage and step is designed to achieve. Try to keep both this particular goal, and how this goal fits into the procedure, in mind. You can click back to either the overview or the quick guide to remind yourself of what you are aiming at overall, or go to index for a complete list of what is in the full version. Within each stage there are a series of exercises to help you to achieve the goals of each stage. To help you with these exercises you can click on John’s Case which provides a modeled use of the exercise or you can click on Help (not yet on-line) which provides a guide to the exercise. If you are more theoretically minded you can click on Theory (not yet on-line) which has an explanation of the theory behind the exercise. Or you can contact us for more help.

This is a guide, not a guranteed solution to every problem. We believe that there are four stages necessary for any wise decision-making: you need to (i), understand the situation and problem (ii), determine what matters (iii), generate and evaluate options, and (iv), implement your solution. How much time you spend on each stage, and which exercises from each stage you do, will depend upon the kind of problem that you are facing so you will want to use your judgment. As you become more familiar with the full guide you will learn to select your own path through it and even devise your own exercises suitable to the problem you are facing. If you see an asterix (*) next to a piece of text or an exercise this indicates that it is recommended as part of the medium guide. These are selected as being relevant to most problems.

Jump to: Stage 1: Situation Stage 2: What Matters Stage 3: Options Stage 4: Solution

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Goal: Obtain an accurate, fair-minded and full description of the situation and problem. Become aware of what your feelings are telling you about the situation and problem. If you don’t understand what situation you’re in and what the problem is you’re unlikely to come up with a good solution to it !

Try using these questions and exercises to help you to get a good grasp on the situation and problem. Experience has shown us that taking time at this first stage really pays dividends so don’t be tempted to rush to determining what matters, or evaluating options too quickly.

Index to Stage 1 mpath Quick Guide to Stage 1

Jump to: Stage 1: Situation Stage 2: What Matters Stage 3: Options Stage 4: Solution

Step 1.1 YOUR INITIAL ANALYSIS OF THE SITUATION AND PROBLEM *

What is the situation and the problem that you believe you are facing? The exercises in this section are designed to help you gain an initial understanding of what the situation and problem you are facing are like and to find out what your feelings about facing this problem are. As you move through the process, and you bring new things to light, you should be prepared to modify your analysis.

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Exercise: Analyse the Situation and Problem *

1. Write down the most important aspects of the situation you are facing as you now see it (do this as fully as you think the problem deserves. If the problem is very important you will want to spend longer thinking about it).

2. Underneath this write down, as fully and precisely as possible, what you currently think the problem is and why it is a problem.

3. Finally write down your initial ideas about what options you have for dealing with this problem and what advantages and disadvantages you think these options have.

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Exercise: Assess the Certainty of your Analysis

You will be more certain and less certain about different parts of your analysis of the situation and problem. Go through your description of the situation and problem and think about whether you are more or less certain about the various claims that you have made. After different parts of your analysis, you could put (+ +) (+) (-) and (- -) to record your degree of certainty. Be aware that we can be misled about even those things we feel most certain about. Make a note of the parts of your analysis that you might wish to revise later.

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Be prepared to use and re-assess what you think about the situation and the problem as you work through the method. You might wish to keep a list of questions that you have raised as you work through the method. These questions could be about facts that you don’t have but would like to know, about doubts you have over parts of your analysis, or about important assumptions that you think you are making. If these questions seem important try to answer them as you continue.

What emotions are you experiencing when you think about this problem and situation ?

Exercise: Analyse and Record your Emotions *

1. Make four columns: above the first column write down “emotion”; above the second column write down “strength (0 –100)”; above the third column write down “about what”; and above the fourth column write down “category”. In the category box write “own decision-making”, “situation/problem”, “options” and “solution”

EMOTION	STRENGTH (0 – 100)	ABOUT WHAT	CATEGORY (OWN DECISION-MAKING, SITUATION/PROBLEM OPTIONS SOLUTION)

2. In the emotion column write down all the emotions you are feeling. Try to work out what these are by thinking about all the different people involved in the situation and what you feel about them, what you feel about your role in the situation, what you feel about your capacity to deal with the problem, what you feel about any options you have in mind, and what you feel about any potential solution. If you wish you can read through your description of the problem and situation to see if these trigger any other emotions.

3. Make an assessment of how strongly you are feeling each emotion and write this down in the strength column (100 if you feel the emotion very, very strongly down to 0 if you don’t feel the emotion at all).

4. Now try to determine what you are feeling this emotion about (if you are angry what are you angry at, if you are sad what are you sad about, if you are elated what are you elated about etc) and write this down in the “about what” column.

5. There are four categories that your emotions might fall into. First, you might have feelings about trying to make the decision (are you anxious about whether you can bring about your decision, or proud of your decisiveness for instance). Second, you might have feelings about others in the situation or problem (are you angry at someone or protective towards someone for instance). Third, you might have feelings about a particular option (you might be anxious that it is too risky, or confident that it captures something important for instance). Finally your might have feelings about what you would like to bring about, what you think the solution to the problem should achieve (are you hopeful that this decision will lead to a better life for you, or concerned that someone’s rights need to be defended for instance). Write in the fourth column either “about own decision-making”, “about the situation/problem”, “about the options” or “about the outcome”.

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Be prepared to both use and reassess these emotions as you work through the method.

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Step 1.2 REFINE AND EXPAND YOUR ANALYSIS OF, AND FEELINGS ABOUT, THE SITUATION AND PROBLEM *

You need to start now on assessing your initial analysis. As you do this strive to be accurate, fair-minded and get a full grasp of the situation and problem.

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Step 1.2.1 Strive for Accuracy *

Strive to check that you are understanding the situation accurately - if you are making mistakes about what the situation is really like you are unlikely to make a wise decision. The exercise below is designed to help you to get an accurate assessment of what you have already analysed.

Exercise: Be your own Sympathetic Critic (or get a friend/colleague to help) *

1. Reread your description of the situation you are facing and pretend you are someone who is sympathetic to you but also challenging. What would this person say to challenge whether you understand the situation accurately?

2. Try to objectively assess whether you have good reasons for thinking the situation and problem are as you have described them.

3. If you find that you have particularly strong feelings about interpreting something one way ask yourself why you feel this so strongly.

4. Look out for any assumptions you have made and ask yourself whether these assumptions are acceptable.

5. Reread your description of the situation and problem and see if there are any ambiguous or important terms or phrases that could be ‘unpacked’ to make the situation and problem clearer. Rewrite these terms and phrases ‘unpacking’ them.

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Step 1.2.2: Strive for Fair-Mindedness: *

As well as making factual mistakes about what a situation is like we tend to give the situation a particular emotional colour. These emotional colours act as prejudgements about the situation and slant how we judge it. Whenever we think about a situation and problem some things stand out in our minds as more important than others. Now what stands out as important may stand out because it is important or it may simply be something that has made a vivid impression on us. Try to be fair-minded in interpreting the situation. The following two exercises are designed to help you with this:

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Exercise: Be an Un-Spin Doctor: Spot and Deal with Loaded Words and Phrases *

Look through your description of the problem and look out for any loaded or emotive words or phrases. Either replace these loaded or emotional words and phrases with more objective alternatives, or if this seems impossible be aware of the loaded and emotive way that you are describing the situation and problem. A friend or colleague may be better at spotting how you have emotionally coloured the situation and problem.

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Exercise: Become Aware of What Seems Important to You and Test its Importance.

Don’t look through the description of the situation and problem but ask yourself what comes into your mind when you think about the situation and problem. Write this down. Now ask yourself why this comes into your mind and whether this is really what is most important. Think what other parties in the situation might think is most important. Also try asking friends and colleagues what they find most important about the situation and see whether you agree or disagree.

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Step 1.2.3. Strive to get a Full Understanding *

As well as being accurate and fair-minded in understanding the situation it is also worth trying to get as full an understanding of the situation as possible (depending of course on how serious the situation is and how much time you have). The next two exercises should help you with this; the first encourages you to seek new information through asking questions and the second to adopt the perspectives of others.

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Exercise: Be an Ace Investigative Journalist *

Take a fresh look at the situation and problem and ask yourself whether there are more facts you need to uncover. Imagine yourself to be an ace investigative journalist who doesn’t want to leave any stone unturned. Ask who, what, where, why, when and how questions and try to answer them. If possible get help from a friend or colleague to frame the questions. Write down your answers to the questions and keep a record of any important questions that are left outstanding.

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Exercise: Ask Others What They Think (or Imagine What They Might Say)

Make a list of all the people involved in the situation. If they are available, and it is appropriate, describe to them your understanding of the situation and problem and ask them to comment on whether they think you have left out anything of importance. If you cannot ask them, imagine what they might say if you were to ask them. Also ask people outside the situation what they think (or imagine what they would say if you were to ask them).

John’s Case

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Step 1.3 REASSESS YOUR INITIAL ANALYSIS OF, AND EMOTIONS ABOUT, THE SITUATION AND PROBLEM. *

If you have taken your time in the first stage, and done the exercises carefully with an open-mind you might well find you want to revise your analysis of, and feelings about, the situation and problem. Now is the time to review what you have done so far.

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Exercise: Reassess your Analysis of the Situation and Problem *

Either modify your previous account, or write down your analysis of the situation you now believe you are faced with. Write out, in detail and precisely, what the problem is that you now believe you are facing. Record any outstanding questions that you think need answering.

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Exercise: Reassess Your Emotions *

Review the list of emotions from the beginning of stage 1 like this:

1. Are there emotions on that list that you no longer feel; if so cross them off.

2. Are there emotions that you now recognize yourself as feeling that are not on your list; if so add them.

3. Review what the emotions are directed at; if this has changed change this.

4. Add two new columns and over the first column write “appropriate response”, and over the second new column write “appropriate action”.

5. In the “appropriate response” column write down whether you now think the emotion is an appropriate response to your own decision-making, to the situation/problem, to the options, or to the possible outcome.

6. In the “appropriate action” column write down what you think the appropriate action to take in response to this emotion is, bearing in mind whether it is appropriate and what the emotion is about (remember that this might be no action, or some action not directly connected to the problem you are trying to deal with now).

This is what your table should now look like:

EMOTION	STRENGTH (0 – 100)	ABOUT WHAT	CATEGORY (OWN DECISION-MAKING, SITUATION/PROBLEM OPTIONS SOLUTION)	APPROPRIATE RESPONSE	APPROPRIATE ACTION

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Note that you will want to keep an open mind about your analysis of the situation so you might well want to return to stage 1 at later points in your decision-making as you uncover new material about the situation and problem and as your feelings develop.

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Goal: While stage 1 was about gaining an accurate assessment of the situation and the problem this stage is about deciding what values should be satisfied by the solution.

There are two steps to this. The first step is a wide, creative and open search to generate candidate values. The second step is determining which of these values most weightily matter.

Index to Stage 2 mpath Quick Guide to Stage 2

Jump to: Stage 1: Situation Stage 2: What Matters Stage 3: Options Stage 4: Solution

Step 2.1 GENERATE CANDIDATE VALUES. *

The following exercise consists of a series of questions designed to allow you to analyse what values might play a role in a wise solution. Use these questions as a way of generating possible ideas. At this point do not assess these values for their importance; concentrate only on their generation. Be open-minded.

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Exercise: Generate candidate values *

Write down all the parties involved in the situation and then make a list of candidate values by answering some, or all, of the following questions:

i) What strikes you as mattering? What are your initial thoughts and feelings about what matters?

ii) What do your emotional responses to the situation and problem, analyzed in stage 1, suggest about what matters? Look back to the table listing your emotions and use these to generate ideas about what matters.

iii) Do those involved have any important rights, duties, or responsibilities? Think about this for all the parties involved. Are there any other parties, you haven’t yet noticed, who might have important rights, duties, or responsibilities?

iv) Do those involved have any important benefits at stake such as physical, social, emotional or financial goods? Think about this for all the parties involved. Are there any other parties, you haven’t yet noticed, who might have important benefits at stake?

v) Do the parties have any preferences? What do you think the parties themselves would

prefer?

vi) Do those involved have any important possible burdens such as physical or emotional pain, or loss of financial or emotional goods? Are there any other parties, you haven’t yet noticed, who might have important burdens at stake?

vii) What might the parties involved (and people who care about them) say about what matters?

viii) What would impartial, unbiased, observers say matters?

ix) What do you think someone that you look up to might say matters ?

x) Are there any important moral principles, such as fairness, at stake?

xi) What, if anything, does the law, codes of ethics and best practice say should be done?

xii) Imagine you have the power to put an ideal solution into place (ignore practical problems for now). What would it be? Why would this be a good solution - what are the values that are fulfilled if it is carried out?

xiii) What do you think someone you look up to would do in this situation? What does this

solution suggest about what matters?

xiv) What might you say mattered looking back on the case in 5 years? At the end of your life?

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Step 2.2 ASSESS CANDIDATE VALUES. *

From step 2.1 you have produced a list of candidate, or potential, values. This will probably be quite a long list (you might like to compare this complete list to what you generated through the first question which asked for what initially struck you as important) but you will not want to treat all of theses candidate values equally. What you need to do now is to determine which of these candidate values are most weighty. Determining which values are most weighty is a tricky part of the procedure. Below are some exercises to help you do this.

The first thing to do is to make sure you haven’t got some values down more than once in different guises.

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Exercise: Sort out the Values at Stake:

Go through the list of candidate values and eliminate any that are repeated so that you only have one of each candidate value left.

John’s Case

Now you have sorted out your list of candidate values you could use any of the following three exercises to determine which ones you think are most weighty. What you are seeking to do is determine what matters the most. You should do the third exercise; look also at the other two and do them if you think they will help you.

Exercise: Determine Weighty Values (1): Examine Reasons

Give reasons for why you think some things are more weighty than others. If you have a friend or colleague try talking this through with them. See how strong you think you’re reasons are. Do your reasons incline you more to some values than others. Keep a record of those values that you judge most weighty and why. Put them in a list with the most weighty at the top and write next to them why you judged them weighty.

John’s Case

Exercise: Determine Weighty Values (2) – Examine Emotions

1. Go back to the emotions you analysed at stage 1 and ask whether these suggest some values are more weighty than others – don’t forget to pay attention to the columns that ask you how strongly you feel this emotion, whether this emotion is appropriate and what action is appropriate to the emotion (you want the emotions to help you, not mislead you).

2. Vividly imagine carrying out any options that you have thought about so far (or even better role play them) and write down what you feel about carrying out this option.

3. Keep a record of the emotions that you used and the values that these emotions suggested. Put the values in a list, with those that are most weighty at the top, and write next to them the relevant emotion.

John’s Case

Exercise: Determine Weighty Values (3) - Eliminate and Weigh *

1. Look at the list of values and ask if each one is acceptable (ask yourself “does this matter at all?”); cross off any that are unacceptable as values and put a question mark by any that you are not sure about.

2. Of the remaining what matters ask if each one is relevant to this problem; cross off any that are not relevant and put a question mark by any that you are not sure about.

3. Of the remaining what matters ask if each one is important in this problem; if it is trivial cross it off.

4. Bearing in mind your assessments of acceptability, relevance and importance (and the conclusions from the previous two exercises if you did them) try now to put the remaining what matters in order of weightiness. If you think any of them are vital to any solution put these at the top of your list and write vital next to them. Below this put values that are very weighty and below this values that are less weighty.

You should have a list something like this:

VALUE	WEIGHT
Value 1