Making the Big Decisions
By this point in the year, many organizations have more ideas than they can realistically pursue.
There may be a promising new program. A potential partnership. An opportunity to expand into a new market or serve a different group of people. A major investment that could strengthen the organization for years to come. Or perhaps there is a more fundamental question about what the organization should focus on next.
The challenge is no longer generating ideas.
It is deciding which ones deserve your time, attention, and resources.
Good Strategy Requires Choices
Most organizations have no shortage of worthwhile possibilities. The problem is that staff time, leadership attention, funding, and organizational capacity are limited.
That means a list of good ideas is not yet a strategy. Strategy requires choices.
- What should we pursue?
- What should we postpone?
- What should we stop doing?
- Where should we invest more?
And which opportunities are attractive in theory but do not make sense for us?
Those decisions can be uncomfortable, particularly when different options have passionate advocates. But avoiding the choice does not eliminate it. It often means that resources become spread across too many priorities and none receives the attention needed to succeed.
Start With the Decision, Not the Analysis
When organizations face an important decision, there is a temptation to start gathering information immediately. Before doing that, define the decision.
Suppose an organization is considering expanding a successful program into a neighboring community. It could commission extensive research about demographics, competitors, funding sources, potential partners, and community needs.
All of that information might be useful. But the better starting point is a more focused question:
What would we need to know to decide whether expansion makes sense?
That question changes the analysis.
Perhaps the critical issues are whether there is sufficient unmet need, whether another organization is already serving that need effectively, whether funding is likely to be available, and whether the organization has the capacity to expand without weakening its existing work.
Now the research has a purpose. It is helping leaders make a particular decision rather than simply producing more information.
Agree on What Matters
The next step is to identify the criteria that should drive the decision. Depending on the organization and the choice, those might include:
- Alignment with mission and strategy
- Potential impact
- Financial sustainability
- Market or community need
- Organizational capacity
- Availability of funding
- Risks and uncertainties
- Competitive position
- Potential partners
- Time required to achieve results
The criteria will not always point in the same direction.
An opportunity may be closely aligned with the mission but difficult to fund. Another may generate revenue but require capabilities the organization does not currently have. A partnership may create significant benefits while also requiring the organization to give up some control.
Making those tradeoffs explicit helps leadership teams move beyond a general discussion of whether an idea is “good.” The real question is whether it is a good choice compared with the alternatives.
Look at More Than One Future
Some decisions are difficult because the facts are unclear. Others are difficult because the future is uncertain.
That distinction matters.
Research can help answer questions about the present. How large is the market? Who else is providing the service? What are customers or community members saying? What would an initiative cost?
But no amount of research can tell us with certainty what funding, demand, regulation, competition, technology, or the broader economy will look like several years from now. For decisions that depend heavily on those uncertainties, scenario planning can be useful.
Instead of trying to predict a single future, leaders can consider several plausible futures and ask how each option might perform under different conditions.
- What happens if funding grows?
- What if it contracts?
- What if demand changes significantly?
- What if a potential competitor becomes a partner?
- What if an important assumption turns out to be wrong?
The goal is not to predict exactly what will happen. It is to make a decision that takes uncertainty seriously.
Test the Assumptions Behind the Choice
Every major decision rests on assumptions.
- We assume people want the service.
- We assume a new market is large enough.
- We assume funders will support the initiative.
- We assume a partnership will create efficiencies.
- We assume an investment will produce the expected return.
- We assume the organization can take on something new without undermining what it already does well.
Before making the decision, identify the assumptions that matter most. Then ask two questions:
- How confident are we that this assumption is true?
- What happens if it is wrong?
An assumption that is both uncertain and critical to success deserves additional attention. It may call for market research, financial modeling, conversations with stakeholders, a pilot program, or another way to test the idea before making a larger commitment.
Other assumptions may turn out not to matter very much. There is little value in spending weeks researching something that would not change the decision.
Compare Real Alternatives
Another common problem is evaluating a preferred idea without seriously considering alternatives.
The choice is rarely simply “Should we do this?”
It may be:
- Should we launch the program ourselves, partner with another organization, or refer people to an existing provider?
- Should we expand geographically, deepen our work in the communities we already serve, or invest in a different service?
- Should we build a new capability internally, contract for it, or collaborate with another organization?
- Should two organizations remain independent, create a formal partnership, share selected services, or consider a merger?
Comparing real alternatives often improves the decision because it makes the tradeoffs visible.
It can also reveal options that were not obvious at the beginning.
Know When You Have Enough Information
Important decisions deserve thoughtful analysis. They do not require perfect information. There will almost always be another study you could conduct, another projection you could refine, or another person you could interview.
At some point, additional analysis stops materially improving the decision. A useful question is:
What information could realistically cause us to choose differently?
If the answer is “not much,” it may be time to decide. If the answer reveals a major unanswered question, that tells you where to focus next.
The Goal Is a Decision You Can Explain
A strong decision does not mean everyone gets their preferred outcome.
It means leaders can explain why the organization chose one direction over another. They can describe the alternatives they considered, the criteria they used, the evidence they reviewed, the assumptions they made, and the risks they accepted.
That clarity becomes particularly important when the decision requires approval from a board, investment from a funder, participation from a partner, or commitment from staff.
It also provides something valuable later: a way to revisit the decision.
If circumstances change, leaders can return to the assumptions and criteria behind the original choice and ask whether the decision still makes sense.
As You Plan for Next Year
October is a useful time to look at the possibilities competing for attention in the coming year.
- Which decisions have you been postponing?
- Which opportunities are consuming discussion but have never been clearly evaluated?
- Where are you trying to pursue several priorities when you really need to choose?
- And what information would help you make those choices with greater confidence?
You may not need another long planning process. You may simply need to define the decision, identify what matters, examine the alternatives, test the most important assumptions, and choose.
Because eventually, planning has to become deciding.