Tip 2, Week 2: Separate the facts from the assumptions in decision making

It sounds like an obvious thing to want our decisions to be based on facts rather than just assumptions.  But when you look at why jobs take longer than expected, business plans don’t go to plan, and misunderstandings happen with customers, it’s often because assumptions have been made in the decision making process.

Assumptions are powerful because they simplify the decision making process.  In some cases, making an assumption, or set of assumptions, might be a very sensible thing to do.  Some examples may be assuming the way your competitors price a piece of work or their final tender bid, assuming the expected working life of a particular piece of equipment, or making assumptions of how many wet weather days to allow in a contract.

The trick with using assumptions is to clearly ‘label’ the assumptions as assumptions.  In this way we won’t confuse them with facts.  The facts are unlikely to be completely wrong or to change, but my assumptions are less certain – I have to remain open to those assumptions being wrong or being corrected by better information down the track.  Ideally, I have to be on the lookout for how I can improve my assumptions.  And I need to be aware of the way in which customers, suppliers, staff, subbies and other people all have their own sets of assumptions.