ABSTRACT
Projects are unique undertakings requiring constant unprecedented decision making in multiple areas: Organization, resources, planning, design, engineering, finance, training, communication, and team building to name a few. Decision making is a crossroads of scientific fields: Operations research meets statistics, engineering, neuroscience, economics, and psychology. Surprisingly, decision making is not a separate knowledge area in methods like PRINCE2, PMBOK, or SCRUM. Traditionally, techniques for making sound decisions under uncertainty has the spotlight. However, the essential worry of every project manager is how to discover imperative decisions hidden from sight. Urgent, overdue decisions will cost more time and money every minute they are delayed. Important decisions that are not recognized can have far-reaching consequences. At some point, all important decisions become urgent ones. In this chapter, we will focus on the elements of decision making: Qualifiers, alternatives, logic, effects, and confirmation. Essential techniques to control project decisions are rolling wave planning, decision trees and networks, stage gate transition, responsibility assignment matrix, and the premortem.
