Tag Archives: decision making

January 31

What you could learn from ‘The Decision Book’ by Krogerus and Tschappeler (2017, 149 pages)

posted by

Get better a decisions by using frameworks to help you gain a different perspective.

»»
November 01

Product leadership part 1 – making great decisions

posted by

Product Leaders (PL) need to ensure that teams are building the most valuable experiences for customers and the company.  To do this, you need to find the right problem and then find a pragmatic solution.  Whether the solution should be executed, will depend on whether it is more or less valuable than your other options. Finding […]

»»
November 01

What does a product leader do?

posted by

Product leaders delight customers in hard-to-copy, margin-enhancing ways.  Gibson Biddle, VP Product Netflix   In my experience product leaders (PL, may also be called product owner or managers) lead the teams that build amazing experiences for customers.  PL’s understand existing and target customers, the companies strategic context and then translate this into a prioritised list of […]

»»
August 24

Intuition in decision making, lessons learnt from the British Army

posted by

In 2015 I wrote a dissertation on military decision-making to complete my MBA.  You can find the executive summary below, and the full dissertation at the link at the bottom of the page. This dissertation was designed to be an independent analysis, and should not be seen as a critique of the military (in which […]

»»
September 30

Leadership hack 011 – Rules are for the obedience of fools and the guidance of wise men (and women)

posted by

We have rules for a reason.  They keep us safe.  You would not get onto a flight if you knew that the pilot was going ignore the aviation air rules during takeoff or landing.  However, what if something happens, something that is not in the rule book?  Or what happens if someone else breaks the rules? […]

»»
September 09

Leadership hack 008 – there are only ever three business problems

posted by

You face a huge variety of problems every day.  Understanding the type of problem you face helps you determine the best way approach and solve it. Most problems can be distilled down to: Diagnosis – not knowing what to do Alignment – not being aligned on what to do Execution – not being able to do […]

»»
June 12

What you could learn from ‘Think like a Freak’ by Stephen Dubner and Steven Levitt (2015, 211 pages)

posted by

Questioning perceived wisdom is a high stakes game.  If you are wrong, then you can be laughed at or vilified.  If you are right, then people may not listen.  If you are very lucky and enough people accept that you are right, you can transform the world. Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner now have a reputation […]

»»
June 06

What could you learn from ‘Decisive’ by Chip and Dan Heath (2014, 252 pages)

posted by

You make thousands of decisions each day.  Some are more important than others.  Research by many academics (for example, Daniel Kahneman, Gary Klein and Amos Tversky) has shown that the way you think, and your emotional state, play an enormous role in your decision-making ability. In their latest book,’Decisive’ Chip and dan Heath argue there four reasons […]

»»
May 04

Staying on the leading edge – part 2. My top leadership and philosophy podcasts by Max Eskell

posted by

Leaders are required to make difficult decisions involving trade-offs between equally good or equally bad options, always under time pressure and rarely with complete information.  Therefore, leadership is as much about thinking, as it is about doing.  The corollary of this is that thinking is central to what leaders do and how they add value, and […]

»»
April 26

Optimal stopping theory – how maths can help you maximise your decisions by Max Eskell

posted by

In life and business, there are many problems where the main issue is that there is a high number of available choices.  In business, these could be finding deciding on a primary contractor, choosing a joint venture partner or even recruiting key individuals. Optimal stopping theory possibly provides help.  Briefly, optimal stopping theory suggests that you should reject […]

»»
April 15

Prioritization, how you could move from urgent to important by Max Eskell

posted by

Time is getting more and more precious each day.  Deciding where to focus your most valuable resource is getting harder and harder.  One solution is to get more efficient.  If you improve the speed at which you work, you can get more done.  While this works great in the short-term, there is a risk that […]

»»
April 12

What can you learn from ‘Nudge’ by Cass Sunstein & Richard Thaler (2009, 312 pages)

posted by

In their book ‘Nudge’, Thaler and Sunstein are among the first to set out the arguments for using behavioural insights to change (‘nudge’) people’s behaviour. By changing the context of a decision, they argue it is possible to reduce unhealthy or undesirable decisions. Their main arguments stem from making sure that choices are presented in […]

»»