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The Power of Decision Tables

Posted on by by Posted in Resources, tools

Have you ever used “pros and cons” lists to help you make difficult decisions? After reading this post, I hope you’ll give up those lists in favor of a much more powerful thinking tool: the decision table.

The power of decision tables

I see your lists, Leslie Nope, and I raise you a matrix.

Here’s how decision tables work, in a nutshell. Rather than making lists, organize all your thoughts and information in the structure of a matrix, of the sort that is sketched below (you can find more detailed instructions, templates, and specific examples here).

  1. As column headers: fill in your evaluation criteria – that is, all the factors that matter for your decision.
  2. As row headers: fill in all your options – that is, your alternatives, or possible courses of action.
  3. Then fill the cells inside the matrix with your “data”: what do you expect from each of your options, for each of your criteria?

The Power of Decision Tables

Why are decision tables better than pros and cons lists?
  • The table structure allows for more than two options. Even if you currently see only two options, the table will naturally encourage you to think more creatively about how to improve or combine your options so that you can maximize the positive outcomes on each of your criteria.
  • The table forces you to think systematically, in a balanced way. For example, it will not allow you to focus on the pros of one option and the cons of others, as we tend to do otherwise.
  • The matrix structure can hold a lot of information without overwhelming your working memory. This creates a great amount of clarity, even in very complex situations.
  • It is a great tool to search for information, showing you clearly where you might still have gaps in your knowledge.
  • If you want to evaluate your options quantitatively to determine a winner, the table allows for weighting your criteria and ranking your options. You can find more instructions on how to do that, including spreadsheet templates and examples here.
  • If you’re making decisions with others, a table is a great basis for discussion and for sharing thought processes and information.
  • Even if you’re not sharing your decision with anyone, documenting your own thought processes for yourself will give you the peace of mind that you’re making the best decision you can, based on your current knowledge. This is very empowering and will help you commit fully once you’ve decided on a course of action. It will also help you revisit the decision later if necessary, as new information comes in.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Upcoming Workshop: Business Vision

Posted on by by Posted in Financial Decisions, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Workshop: Business VisionMy next workshop is targeted to small business owners, solo-preneurs, people in private practice, or those interested in starting a business. It will be an intensive session to hone your business vision and mission.

The workshop is limited to a small number of participants to allow for a very personalized and interactive approach. We will work together to systematically explore your vision and purpose as a business, and to clarify your intention, values and goals.

As a take-home gift, you will receive a little guidebook for strategic planning. The guidebook goes beyond the contents of the workshop. It can serve as your own resource later on if you choose to develop a more detailed strategic plan based on your core vision.

If you know of people who are either thinking of starting a business or are running their own small business or private practice, I would love it if you could forward this announcement.

Workshop: Business Vision

Time:
Thursday, May 26, 4pm – 7pm

Location:
522 SW 5th Ave, Conference Room 7th Floor
Portland, OR 97204

You can see the full announcement and register here.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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“You Are on the Fastest Route”

Posted on by by Posted in Achieving Goals, Leadership, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development, Stress Management

Did you notice? According to the encouraging GPS voice, you are always “on the fastest route”.

It’s true though: as long as you know where to go next, none of the past detours, U-turns, or missed exits, change the fact that you are, NOW, on the fastest route.

FastestRoute

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Mission, Vision and Values

Posted on by by Posted in Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Do you know how to create a powerful statement of your organization’s mission, vision and values?

These few pages (downloadable pdf) describe a framework that I’ve found helpful in my strategic planning work. While it is geared mainly toward non-profit organizations, I find the approach just as useful for businesses.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Mission Vision


Age Differences in Decision Making Skills

Posted on by by Posted in Intuition, Risk and Uncertainty

A recent study confirms it again: older adults do well with decisions that require emotional skills.

Old age affects our decision-making skills in quite complex ways. Some cognitive skills decline with age, while emotional skills may even improve. This leads to interesting findings: older people do worse on some decision tasks, but they do just as well as younger adults on those same tasks when they get to experience them, rather than read instructions. This recent study, for example, used two ways to present gambling tasks. In the “description-based” task, people received information about different card decks: the probability of winning or losing, and the amount of money that could be won or lost with each card drawn from that particular deck. In the “experience-based” task they received none of that information – they were simply given four card decks, from which they had to start picking cards and figure out over time which card decks were more advantageous than others. In other words, people got to experience wins and losses over time and build an “intuition” as to which gambles are worth playing, and which are worth avoiding, without ever knowing the underlying probabilities for sure. (The researchers used the famous Iowa Gambling Task – which, I just discovered, you can get as a free iPad app).

Age differences in decision making skills
While older adults (aged 64-90) managed to win less money overall in the description based task, they did just as well as younger adults (aged 18-32) in the experience-based task.

This is in line with the idea that our decision-making skills rely on two systems:

  1. The affective or experiential mode, which is fast, automatic, intuitive, and builds from our experiences in similar situations.
  2. The deliberative mode, which is is effortful, conscious, analytical, logical, relatively slow, controlled, limited by our working memory capacity, and therefore linked to general intelligence.

As we get older, it is normal for our working memory capacity to decline, in particular the speed with which we can juggle information, and therefore it is not surprising that our deliberative decision-making skills also suffer. However, our affective or experiential abilities seem to remain intact into old age.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Selected References:
Bechara, A., Damasio, A. R., Damasio, H., & Anderson, S. W. (1995). Insensitivity to future consequences following damage to human prefrontal cortex. In J. Mehler & S. Franck (Eds.), Cognition on cognition (pp. 3–11). Cambridge, MA, US: The MIT Press.
Bechara, A., Damasio, H., Tranel, D., & Damasio, A. R. (2005). The Iowa Gambling Task and the somatic marker hypothesis: some questions and answers. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 9(4), 159–162. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2005.02.002
Bruine de Bruin, W., Parker, A. M., & Fischhoff, B. (2007). Individual differences in adult decision-making competence. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 92(5), 938–956. http://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.92.5.938
Cauffman, E., Shulman, E. P., Steinberg, L., Claus, E., Banich, M. T., Graham, S., & Woolard, J. (2010). Age differences in affective decision making as indexed by performance on the Iowa Gambling Task. Developmental Psychology, 46(1), 193–207. http://doi.org/10.1037/a0016128
Huang, Y. H., Wood, S., Berger, D. E., & Hanoch, Y. (2015). Age differences in experiential and deliberative processes in unambiguous and ambiguous decision making. Psychology and Aging, 30(3), 675–687. http://doi.org/10.1037/pag0000038
Johnson, M. M. S. (1990). Age Differences in Decision Making: A Process Methodology for Examining Strategic Information Processing. Journal of Gerontology, 45(2), P75–P78. http://doi.org/10.1093/geronj/45.2.P75
MacPherson, S. E., Phillips, L. H., & Della Sala, S. (2002). Age, executive function and social decision making: A dorsolateral prefrontal theory of cognitive aging. Psychology and Aging, 17(4), 598–609. http://doi.org/10.1037/0882-7974.17.4.598
Peters, E., Hess, T. M., Västfjäll, D., & Auman, C. (2007). Adult Age Differences in Dual Information Processes: Implications for the Role of Affective and Deliberative Processes in Older Adults’ Decision Making. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 2(1), 1–23. http://doi.org/10.1111/j.1745-6916.2007.00025.x
Salthouse, T. A., & Babcock, R. L. (1991). Decomposing adult age differences in working memory. Developmental Psychology, 27(5), 763–776. http://doi.org/10.1037/0012-1649.27.5.763


Why is it such hard work to find your own niche?

Posted on by by Posted in Creative Thinking, Strategic Planning, Business Decisions, Organizational Development

Because until you fill it, it’s just a gap.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

Find your own niche

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Numerical Skills for Financial Decisions

Posted on by by Posted in Financial Decisions, Health Decisions, Risk and Uncertainty

Relatively few people own private long-term care insurance, even though long-term care is one of the largest financial risks currently facing older people. A new study suggests that poor numerical skills may explain a part of that phenomenon: people with better numerical skills (even after controlling for education and cognitive function) are more likely to hold long-term care insurance.

Given the complexity of this particular financial decision, it is not surprising that a lack of numerical skills would create barriers. Assessing the value of a private long-term care insurance policy involves a variety of calculations, such as determining the probability of needing care, evaluating the likely lifetime expense of premiums against the payments one could expect to receive, and comparing the costs and benefits of insurance against other strategies to manage the same risks. It is easy to feel overwhelmed by all this. A lack of skills to deal with all those numbers would certainly prevent people from making the best decisions for themselves.

As for so many problems, investing into education seems a good idea if we want to empower everyone to prepare well for their own future. In addition though, I think it’s important to directly offer people help with some of those complex decisions processes.

What do you think? How do you navigate such a complex financial decision? 


Reference:
McGarry, B. E., Temkin-Greener, H., Chapman, B. P., Grabowski, D. C., & Li, Y. (2016). The Impact of Consumer Numeracy on the Purchase of Long-Term Care Insurance. Health Services Research, n/a–n/a (article first published online: 22 JAN 2016). http://doi.org/10.1111/1475-6773.12439

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Our New Article Is Published: Age Differences in the Overchoice Effect.

Posted on by by Posted in Uncategorized

A holiday gift? Our new paper has been published:

Misuraca, R., Teuscher, U., & Faraci, P. (2015). Is more choice always worse? Age differences in the overchoice effect. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 1–14.
http://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2015.1118107

As an author, I get to share this link, which will give the first 50 people who click on it access to the full text: http://www.tandfonline.com/eprint/TBIvvk8A2gvMruKffD4i/full

Please feel free to share the link with any colleagues who might be interested in the topic.

Happy Holidays! May you have plenty of choices and a long life to enjoy them.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR

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Instead of a Book Recommendation

Posted on by by Posted in Book Recommendations, Health Decisions, Risk and Uncertainty

This month I’m recommending an article instead of a book, by Gigerenzer and his colleagues, who have been pioneers in advocating for statistical literacy:
Gigerenzer, G., Gaissmaier, W., Kurz-Milcke, E., Schwartz, L. M., & Woloshin, S. (2007). Helping Doctors and Patients Make Sense of Health Statistics. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 8(2), 53–96.

The article shows impressively how not only patients, but also journalists and physicians lack a basic understanding of health statistics, which can have serious consequences for healthcare and medical decision making.
The authors make a very strong case that this confusion is not necessary: it is created by nontransparent presentation of information (intentional or not), and the skill of thinking about these statistics and probabilities could relatively easily be taught – but isn’t.

Please let me know if you are interested in reading the article but don’t have access to the full text here.

by Ursina Teuscher (PhD), at Teuscher Decision Coaching, Portland OR


Medical Decision: What Would You Do?

Posted on by by Posted in Health Decisions


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