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Decision free solutions

‘DF Procurement of innovative technology.’

Procuring complex technology is always challenging. How is the buyer to know he gets what he needs when he doesn't understand the technology? How to differentiate between competing technologies? Well, don't. Define your goals instead of a long list of requirements, and identify the vendor with the relevant expertise.

Decision free solutions

‘DF Lean overcoming resistance.’

For the Netherlands Cancer Institute/AVL Decision Free Solutions provided the project leader to realise predefined targets. Only to find out the targets were invented, causing strong resistance within the department before anything had happened. DF Lean overcame the resistance.

Decision free solutions

‘Decision Free Birthing put in practice.’

In 2018 over 130 million women will give birth. Each expectant mother has her own personal birthing aim. But whereas birth is a physiological process requiring no interventions, there are few processes in this world where so many (stress inducing) decisions are made by others and for the mother. Time to empower the soon-to-be mothers.

The alternative to decision making is transparency.

Decisions are conclusions or resolutions reached after consideration (the Oxford dictionary definition of ‘decision’). When something needs to be considered it means it is not transparent. Create transparency and what follows are not decisions but ‘the logical next step’. When something is transparent you don’t have to think. Transparency allows decisions to be replaced by approvals.

Het vrijmaken van resources is efficiënter dan kosten besparen

In goede tijden is het eenvoudiger om goede marges te maken. In slechte tijden is je enkel verlaten op goede kwaliteit een uitdaging. Maar het simpelweg het mantra “kosten besparen” hanteren leidt tot een lagere kwaliteit en uiteindelijk kleinere marges. Het implementeren van DFS leidt tot een betere benutting van de beschikbare expertise, een verbetering van de kwaliteit, en dus uiteindelijk ook tot lagere kosten. Dit is hoe expert-organisaties de competitie voorblijven, en hun marges op peil houden.

Leadership performance is easy to predict.

In every leadership-role the aim is to create the conditions to achieve the aims against minimal risk. The needed combination of experience and skills is always different. Simple observations help to identify the right person.

Everybody can manage risk, only few can minimise it.

In every organisation there are both identified and unidentified risks. Unidentified risks occur e.g. when aims are not clearly understood, when it is unclear whether the right expertise is available, or used appropriately. All of which results in decision making. To manage identified risks is straightforward, to minimise risk you must avoid decision making. Which is what an expert does. But what does it take to become an expert?

To stay ahead, freeing up resources beats cutting cost.

In good times it may be relatively easy to make profits. In bad times relying on quality alone can be challenging. But the approach of “cutting cost” will affect the quality of your solution, and margins will get affected. Implementing DFS improves the utilisation of available expertise, improving quality and (thus) bringing cost down. This is how expert organisations stay ahead of competition, and retain healthy margins.

That decisions increase risk is not semantics, it is logic.

That decisions increase risk follows from the dictionary definition and use of logic. Few experience decisions in this way, for various obvious reasons. Many unsubstantiated choices are made based on experience or are educated guesses. We get a lot of decisions right. When the risk does occur, usually much later, we often fail to make the link with the decision. What is more, making decisions often makes us feel good. But the risk is still for real.