Let's talk decision-making in product orgs.

So many decisions to make, so little time.

A mentee recently asked me, ‘do you ever panic when you have to make critical product decisions?’

If I’m being honest, after years of experience, YES, I still do.

Truth is: working in startups demands being comfortable with uncertainty. The only way to overcome that panic and anxiety is to build a framework of operation that guides further decision-making.

Here’s a decision-making framework that works for me and might work for you too.

1. The big picture
   Many miss the big picture when making everyday decisions! Keeping the larger picture in mind makes it easy to decide on the ideas that create the most important outcomes. Without being intentional about hitting the ultimate company goal, you’ll have very narrow criteria to evaluate ideas, thus hitting local maxima and regularly missing the bigger impact.

2. More options, please
   In modern product teams, there is often pressure to move fast and break things. To do so, you must hasten your decision-making. If you're faced with a binary decision, know that you are probably not evaluating other options. At any point, you must have a few ideas you rejected to move forward with your decision. It takes time, but it ensures that your choices are well thought through.

3. Overcome blindspots
   Your view of the problem could be myopic if you rely on yourself or the same few people in your team to make decisions. Even as a team, you are prone to blindspots that can only be overcome by bringing fresh perspectives. Bringing in diverse viewpoints helps remove your biases and opens up a world of possibilities you might have never considered before.

4. Avoid analysis paralysis
   Okay, so now we have more options and more diverse perspectives. But how do you ensure you are not getting stuck in analysis paralysis? Remember, you still gotta move fast! The key is to make smaller decisions faster: Decisions with very little at stake that does not require all the stakeholders to be bought in should be made quickly.
   
5. A structured process
   You don’t necessarily need to have a decision when you are asked about a problem, but you should have a clearly defined and communicated execution process. That ensures allows room for concerns and timely buy-in.

6. Be transparent
   Nobody cares if you had a structured process if it wasn’t communicated well. Be transparent about what options were considered, who participated, and the reasoning. I use a Google Doc for any new group meeting or project and track all discussions and decisions. This ensures everyone is on the same page, avoids common bad behaviors, and builds trust.

7. Track & measure
   Decisions made today will help shape the future of your product, and good decisions will become a part of the framework we discussed. Tracking the success and failure of your current decisions becomes the basis of subsequent choices. Doing so adds the element of being data-driven in your decision-making.

Note: Speed matters most in startups: default to quick action for non-critical and reversible decisions.

Thus, decision-making is part art, part science. The science of choosing to make better decisions is what lends it to becoming an art of intuitive decision-making.

What would you add to this framework?