A3: DECISION PROCESS CHARTER***

... clarifying the purpose of the process involves creating an artifact with the STAKEHOLDERS that will serve as a guideline for the team throughout the DECISION WORKSHOP. A process charter is a higher level process compared to PROCESS CLARITY as it serves as the guideline for the whole cycle.

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A clear purpose sets the stage for everyone to support the process and a lack of clarity on purpose sets the stage for confusion and divergence.

Usually, decision makers begin the decision-making process without clarifying why they are doing this process, what the process will entail, and the deliverables that would make it a success. Without such clarity, stakeholders do not know what is asked of them and to what they should agree. Furthermore, there would be a lack of legitimacy of the process from the stakeholder's perspective, and they would not be willing to contribute. All these reasons would decrease the chances that the final recommendation will be accepted.

Therefore:

Create a decision process charter that answers the following questions:

• What are you doing? (i.e., what exactly will we do as part of this process, usually phrased as "we are deciding to ...")
• Why are you doing this decision process? (i.e., why do we even bother with this decision-making process)
• How will you know that you are successful? (i.e. what needs to happen for this process to be labeled as a success, usually the deliverable of the process)

Example: "I will decide which Ph.D. program to apply to. I am doing this to plan my career for the next ten years. I will know that the decision process is successful if I have an application strategy."

To facilitate the discussion:

• Ask these questions to each stakeholder and display the answers to everyone once the duplicates are removed.
• After the feedback from the team, create a charter with the whole team to get everyone on the same page.

A decision process charter created by the whole team will get more acceptance than one that is generated only by the decision maker.

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After drafting the charter and everyone knowing what the decision is about, you can move on to a framing discussion using a DECISION HIERARCHY.

References:

Parnell, G. S., Terry Bresnick, M. B. A., Tani, S. N., & Johnson, E. R. (2013). Handbook of Decision Analysis (Vol. 6). John Wiley & Sons.