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Targeted, Relevant Information Is The Only Way To Make Timely, Informed Decisions – Here’s How!

We’ve all been there – staring at a mountain of data, reports piling up, and emails flooding in, yet still feeling paralyzed when it’s time to make a big decision. The truth is, more information isn’t always better. Indeed, what we really need is the most relevant information to make a timely, informed decision. Think of it like a detective solving a case – they don’t collect every piece of evidence in the city; they focus on what matters to crack the case.

In this article, I’ll show you a 5-step process that results in targeted, relevant information to make a timely, informed decision. This information gathering process starts with a decision-maker’s guidance on their information requirements. From there the decision team identifies what they know and what they do not know. This is their information gap. Consequently, this void in information reveals what data they need. As a result, they gather what is necessary, clarify it, and deliver the most relevant information they can in the time available. From there, the decision-maker, armed with the best information, moves forward confidently, assured that their decision will achieve the desired outcome.

Step 1: Get a Clear Understanding on What Success Looks Like – the Desired Outcome.

the process to gather relevant information for timely, informed decisions

To be clear, it is not the data that drives a problem-solving process. Instead, it is the need to make a timely, informed decision. Hence, the focus of data collection and information processing is on the decision-maker’s desired outcome. Consequently, it is critical that decision-makers identify exactly what their desired outcome is in order to guide the gathering of time-sensitive, relevant information to make the best decision.

Indeed, before you dive into gathering information, you need to paint a vivid picture of what victory looks like. Skip this step, and you’ll end up with a pile of interesting but useless data. Start by asking yourself what you want to achieve – not in vague terms like “better results,” but in specific, measurable outcomes. Maybe it’s “increase customer retention by 15% in six months” or “reduce production costs by $100,000 this quarter.” The clearer your target, the easier it becomes to spot the information that actually matters.

Step 2: Map Out Your Options, Decision Criteria, and Constraints to Guide Your Information Gathering.

Besides, defining the desired outcome to gude information gathering, you need to start mapping out your feasible options, key criteria for making the decision, and any constraints. With these decision elements described, information gathering and analysis is focused on only what is needed. Think of this step as creating your decision blueprint – it’s the foundation that makes everything else easier. By getting specific about what you’re choosing between, what matters most, and what limits you’re working within, you’ll save time and make better choices. Here’s how to break it down: your decision’s options, criteria, and constraints.

a. Your Options, Your Possible Courses of Action.

First, list out every realistic choice you could make. For a software decision, write down specific vendors like Salesforce, HubSpot, and Zoho. For a hiring choice, list your candidate pool. Don’t censor yourself yet – include any option that could potentially work. At this point, you do not need a detailed description of each of your courses of action. What is needed is enough definition that can help focus your information gathering efforts to just focus on what is relevant.

b. Decision Criteria. 

Decision Criteria
Credit: Simplicable

Next, define what success looks like. These are your must-haves, not just your nice-to-haves. For software, this might include user-friendly interface, integration capabilities, mobile access, and reporting features. Moreover, the number of decision criteria will define how difficult or how easy it will be to gather information. This also holds true when making the actual decision. Indeed, the lower the number of decision criteria keeps things simple, but make sure you identify what is critical. So, in most cases it is best to limit yourself between three and eight criteria to keep the decision-making process from becoming too unwieldy.  

Also, you do not need to finalize your decision criteria at this time, just enough to identify what information will be relevant to the decision. For instance, if one of your decision criteria is cost, this would help focus your information gathering efforts on financial information. For more information on decision criteria, see Simplicable’s 100 Examples of Decision Criteria and their decision criteria chart above. Also, see Tatyana Fittipaldi’s article, Why Is Decision Criteria Important in Decision-Making?

c. Constraints.

Lastly, identify your limitations and major risk areas, especially any unacceptable risks. For instance, maybe you have a strict budget of $50,000, need to implement within 3 months, or require specific security certifications. These constraints act as guardrails, keeping you focused on realistic options and preventing wasted time on courses of action that are not feasible.

For more on decision-centric information gathering, see Mark Zangari’s article, The Decision-Centric Dashboard. Also, for more on how to state your business intentions and targeted outcomes, see my article, Schwerpunkt: The Way Businesses Get Their People To Seize Opportunities, Shatter Competitors. Lastly, for more on identifying risks, see my article, Risk Mitigation For Supply Chains: How To Best Identify, Make Assessment, Overcome.

Step 3: Think Through What Relevant Information You Need to Know.

Now that you know where you’re going and what stands in your way, you can figure out what information actually matters. For example, let’s take a product launch. Here, you’ll need vital data like competitor pricing and customer pain points, not trivial details about their office setup. Also, keep tabs on your business trends and any unusual patterns in your data feeds, but don’t get lost in the weeds. The key is to gather information that helps you reach your desired outcome – nothing more, nothing less. Next, let’s look at what exactly is data, information, and knowledge as well as how to determine what is relevant.

a. The Sources of Relevant Information: Data, Information, and Knowledge.

In modern businesses there are many sources of relevant information. For instance, this can mean tapping into both internal enterprise systems (e.g. CRM, ERP, HRM, BI) and external feeds (e.g. market indicators, weather patterns, social media sentiment). Further, these sources can include raw data and pre-processed information. Also, another source of relevant information is organizational knowledge. To help sort out these sources of relevant information, see chart, The Flow from Data to Information to Knowledge, and subsequent discussion below.

1) Raw Data as a Source of Information.  

Indeed, data is simply the digital representation of a fact or event. Moreover, data is acquired in many different ways. For instance, raw data can come directly from observation and unstructured digital sources such as images. But increasingly, it comes from many different systems and input devices such as the Internet of Things (IoT). Additionally in these cases, data is acquired and usually stored in raw alphanumeric values (e.g. “Customer Number”, “Unit Price”). Further, it can contain generated values (e.g. “Net Pay”, “Percent Complete”).

2) Information, the Result of Analysis.

Ultimately, information’s purpose is for the decision-maker to make a timely, actionable decision to achieve the desired outcome. Thus, information is a perishable commodity that only has value and relevance when it provides insights that result in superior decision-making and action. Also, information is the result of analyzing raw data. Further, information can transform into knowledge such as becoming a record of organization’s past experiences and decisions. Consequently, relevant information is derived when raw data is processed, organized, or structured to provide meaning and context for making a decision. For more on this subject, see Tim Bryce’ post, Defining Information Requirements.

3)  Knowledge: What You Know.

In simple terms, knowledge is what we know. This knowledge is based on past decisions, policies, and best practices that the organization and decision-makers possess. More and more, organizations are leveraging knowledge tools such as graph tech that provides digital storage for rapid access. For more on knowledge management and tools, click here.

Also, for an excellent source for the flow of data, information, and knowledge in the context of decision-making, see The Internet of Water Coalition’s posting, What are Data, Information, and Knowledge.

b. How to Determine What is Relevant Information.

To determine if information is relevant, start with your core decision requirements identified earlier: what outcome you want, what options you have, what criteria matter to you, and what limits you face. Think of these elements as a filter – they help you quickly separate useful data from noise. Specifically, you can use these decisions elements to determine relevancy in terms of the information’s applicability, accuracy, and timeliness. So the key relevancy questions to ask are:  

Information Relevancy Questions
  • Applicability: Is it applicable to achieving a successful outcome? Would it help rule out certain options?
  • Accuracy: Will it validate any key assumptions or confirm accuracy of the situation?
  • Timeliness: Can we collect and analyze it in time?

Below are more references on determining what information is relevant and not relevant to making a decision. First, there is Accounting Insights’ article, Think Through What Relevant Information You Need to Know, that provides clear criteria on identifying relevant information.  Also, for a detailed process on identifying relevant information, see Marine Corps University’s slide packet on the Intelligence Preparations of the Battlespace. Lastly, see my article, Organizational Situational Awareness: How To See Remarkably In The World Of Digital Tech and AI, for more on the importance of gaining organizational situational awareness.

Step 4: Determine What Relevant Information is Missing – the Raw Data You Need.

In this step of information gathering, you look at the gap between what you know and what you need to know. Maybe you have great customer feedback but no clear picture of your production costs. Or perhaps you understand the market well but aren’t sure about regulatory requirements. So, this is the relevant information that you need to make an informed decision. Consequently, you can then identify the data source such as a system or an image that your team needs to fill your information gap. Also, you need to think through how you will acquire and analyze this data to support timely decision-making.

The Dangers of Information Overload

At the same time, the decision team needs to think through more than just gathering this critical data. You also need to avoid information overload. Indeed, if you gather too much data, it can actually get in the way of making an informed decision. This is because a decision-maker and team may not have the capacity to process and utilize the data in the time available. For a graphic depiction of this, see diagram, Information Overload in the Information Age. This graph shows the optimal balance between decision-making performance and information load.

Surprisingly in today’s technology-driven world, we’re facing a unique challenge. Namely, we’re collecting more data than ever before, but our ability to analyze it hasn’t kept up. As a result, we’re constantly trying to balance the sheer volume of data we gather with our capacity to understand and use it effectively. Hence, as our systems generate vast amounts of information, we have to continually develop new tools like AI and advanced data analytics to help us make sense of it all. Indeed, the further advancement of these analytical tools are essential for us to keep up. For more on information overload, see Peter Gordon Roetzel’ paper, Information Overload in the Information Age.

Step 5: Gather, Clarify, and Deliver the Most Relevant Information You Can in the Time Available.

This is the final step where you pull together the relevant information in order to make a timely decision. So, to make effective decisions, corporate executives need data analytics to minimize information latency and maximize agility. Moreover, the time is always ticking, and perfect information is a myth. So, decision teams must focus on getting the most crucial missing pieces first. Remember the focus is on decision-making. Hence, this process doesn’t need to be pretty as long as it results in the best information for making an informed decision at the optimal time.

Conclusion.

In this article, I’ve shown you a 5-step process that results in targeted, relevant information to make a timely, informed decision. Specifically, this information gathering process starts with a decision-maker’s guidelines for information gathering. From there the decision team identifies what they know and what they do not know. This is their information gap. Consequently, this void in information reveals what data they need. As a result, they gather what is necessary, clarify it, and deliver the most relevant information they can in the time available. From there, the decision-maker, armed with the best information, moves forward confidently, assured that their decision will achieve the desired outcome.

For more from SC Tech Insights, see the latest articles on Data Analytics and Decision Science.

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