How to Solve Any Problem with Decision Sprint, the Breakthrough Method for Innovation and Growth

Decision Sprint is a new way to innovate into the unknown and move from strategy to action. It is a system that helps you discover, align, and decide on the best course of action for any challenge or opportunity. In this article, you will learn how Decision Sprint works, what benefits it offers, and how you can apply it to your own projects and goals.

If you want to become a better problem solver, a more effective leader, and a more successful innovator, you need to read Decision Sprint by Atif Rafiq, a Fortune 500 and Silicon Valley trailblazer. This book will show you how to turn unknowns into knowns, how to align your team around a common vision, and how to make fast and smart decisions that lead to action. Don’t miss this chance to get ahead of the curve and master the art of solving for the unknown. Read on to find out more.

Genres

Business, Leadership, Innovation, Strategy, Management, Decision Making, Problem Solving, Entrepreneurship, Technology, Creativity

Decision Sprint is a book that teaches you how to solve any problem by using a three-phase process: exploration, alignment, and decision making. Exploration is where you identify and investigate the unknowns that affect your problem or opportunity.

Alignment is where you synthesize and prioritize the insights from your exploration and create a shared understanding with your team. Decision making is where you commit to the actions that will move you forward and execute them with speed and effectiveness.

The book provides 13 workflows that you can use to implement the Decision Sprint process for different scenarios and situations. These workflows are based on proven methods and tools from various disciplines, such as design thinking, lean startup, agile, and behavioral science. The book also offers practical tips and examples from the author’s own experience as a leader and innovator in various industries and organizations.

Review

Decision Sprint is a highly valuable and relevant book for anyone who wants to improve their problem-solving skills and achieve better outcomes in their work and life. The book is well-written, engaging, and easy to follow.

The author explains the concepts and methods clearly and concisely, and provides ample illustrations and case studies to demonstrate their application and impact. The book is not only informative, but also inspiring and empowering. It challenges you to think differently, to embrace uncertainty, and to take action. It gives you a framework and a toolkit that you can use to tackle any challenge or opportunity with confidence and creativity.

Decision Sprint is a book that I would recommend to anyone who wants to learn how to solve for the unknown and become a more innovative and effective leader. It is a book that I would read again and again, and use as a reference and a guide for my own projects and goals. It is a book that will change the way you think and work, and help you achieve more than you ever thought possible.

Recommendation

Donald H. Rumsfeld, President George W. Bush’s defense secretary, popularized the concept of “unknown unknowns”: risks you can’t anticipate because they are rooted in things that you don’t know that you don’t know. In this exploration of smart decision-making, Silicon Valley innovator Atif Rafiq expands on Rumsfeld’s concept. Business leaders must accept that they don’t know everything, he explains, urging them to work proactively to discover unknowns and turn them into knowns by using his “Decision Sprint” system – a process designed to help leaders avoid the pitfalls that derail innovative projects.

Take-Aways

• Organizations often lack effective systems for dealing with “unknowns.”
• The “Decision Sprint” approach calls for System-2 thinking.
• Upstream decisions determine whether a project or initiative’s execution will go smoothly.
• Working upstream, the Decision Sprint process helps secure buy-in from everyone involved in a project or initiative.
• The five elements of the Decision Sprint’s “workflows” help teams make quick, effective progress toward final decisions.
• Workflows enable participants to move from “questions to answers to conclusions.”
• Technological advances, including AI, can support the decision-making process.

Summary

Organizations often lack effective systems for dealing with “unknowns.”

Companies today face a complex environment where various “unknowns” impede planning and generate ambiguity. Organizational leaders tend to react to these unknowns in one of two ways: They either pretend the unknowns don’t exist and plot their course forward based on known risks, or they encourage exploration of unknowns, but the effort exists in a silo and often isn’t integrated into corporate planning or strategy.

“Connect decisions to the work behind them to make the decisions stick. ”

Neither approach is ideal. Innovation and the successful navigation of unknowns hinge on establishing pre-execution – or “upstream” – processes for discovering unknown risks, turning them into known risks and deciding how to respond to them. Only then can a project or initiative hope to flow smoothly.

The “Decision Sprint” approach calls for System 2 thinking.

The Decision Sprint approach helps organizations make better decisions by enabling better inputs – the factors decision-makers take into account when weighing ideas and setting a course of action. When companies normalize the organization-wide process of discovering and addressing unknowns, they increase the likelihood of successfully traversing the challenging space between goals and results. They also foster collaboration and creativity.

“Problem-solving needs to be reinvented for the modern era, and solving for unknowns is the key.”

In his book Thinking Fast and Slow, economics Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman explains that the human brain has two primary decision-making systems. In System 1 thinking, the brain draws on established practices and patterns to make swift decisions. The brain applies System 2 thinking in novel situations that require a slower decision-making process. People use System 2 thinking to probe the unknowns that come with new circumstances or ideas and to question their assumptions.

Organizations are better at System 1 thinking – execution – than at System 2 thinking. However, companies must find ways to implement System 2 thinking, anyway, because novel situations – unknowns – are inevitable in today’s business environment. The need to react and respond to unknowns shows up most clearly during decision-making. However, organizations often move ahead without sufficiently exploring a decision’s unknowns, or they attempt to delay making difficult decisions. This results in “more questions than answers.”

No matter what decision-making process your organization uses, its most vital choices must be made in advance within the upstream processes it follows before it acts. Using System 2 thinking, take the time to uncover and examine a problem’s unknowns, gather information about their implications and discuss ideas before reaching conclusions.

The Decision Sprint process ensures thorough upstream work and helps secure buy-in from everyone involved in a project or initiative.

Explore your organization’s choices thoroughly – and think through how your company’s processes will work with each option – before focusing on a course of action and moving forward with execution. The Decision Sprint process has three main, interconnected stages:

1. “Exploration” – Stakeholders gather information about a potential issue from people within the company, customers and industry data. They ask open-ended questions and consider counterintuitive viewpoints to uncover unknowns and new questions worth discussing. Finally, they define the problem.
2. “Alignment” – In this stage, people share their insights and brainstorm potential solutions. The goal is to get everyone involved to settle on a feasible solution they agree will help solve the problem.
3. “Decision-making” – Once everyone is aligned behind a solution, leaders must create an in-depth execution plan that clearly establishes who is in charge of which tasks.

The Decision Sprint system moves project-related choices along in a “flow state,” beginning with information gathering in the face of many unknowns. The team takes the time to explore the issues that it must resolve. It should focus on a limited number of initiatives or projects – selecting those with the greatest current strategic value and opportunities for future growth and development.

After conducting explorations and studying their findings, teams hold alignment and decision-making sessions and make their way through a series of workflows to meet their milestones and deadlines.

“When it comes time to lift our heads and engage with leaders, we need a CliffsNotes version of the work behind the work, the conclusions we’ve drawn and recommendations.”

As the workflow process moves forward, leaders should hold monthly project reviews and ask open-ended questions such as, “Are we missing anything?” and, “What actions do you suggest the team take?” As team members establish a direction, formulate the necessary questions, conduct research and begin to generate answers, knowns will replace unknowns. As ideas align, “polished” solutions will emerge and lead to thoughtful decisions.

The five elements of the Decision Sprint’s “workflows” help teams make quick, effective progress toward final decisions.

Decision Sprint workflows move you and your team forward toward final decisions and execution plans. Each workflow includes five core elements. Have each element in place before beginning a workflow, so you can continue to make progress, avoid blind spots and formulate sound solutions:

1. Participation – A list of all the necessary participants and their responsibilities.
2. Purpose – An explanation of the distinct role and purpose of the workflow.
3. Inputs – A set of minimal requirements to meet before starting the workflow.
4. Outputs – The concrete results that the workflow aims to generate.
5. Format – Guidelines for discussion and interaction, as determined by the workflow’s purpose.

Workflows enable participants to move from “questions to answers to conclusions.”

The 13 workflows of the Decision Sprint approach build on one another. These workflows allow you to apply this process to any project or initiative:

1. “Initiating an exploration” – Your first step is to create a definitive “problem statement” which asks, “What is this project’s major fork in the road?” Develop three to four variations of your problem statement, and then figure out the ideal one to pursue. To make sure the right people are involved in the exploration process, identify a “champion” for each initiative. This person should have a genuine interest in moving the project forward. The champion decides the workflow’s starting point, subsequent action steps and who else to involve, depending on the competencies required to address the issues shaping targeted decisions.
2. “Sourcing matters” – List your primary issues and focus on them. Plan input meetings to generate questions that will enable you to develop the best answers for each issue. Instead of allowing unanswered questions to build up, teams should move through the confusion, pursue everything they need to know and find the right answers. Make the questioning process as expansive as possible.
3. “Sourcing questions“– Your questions should clarify the decision’s issues. Make each question as precise as possible. The right questions will cause the examination team members to pause to consider their responses. Have numerous people ask different questions. Brainstorm by asking more questions and striving to find better answers to broaden your understanding of the outstanding issues. The more brainstorming sessions you engage in, the better.
4. “Calibrating the exploration” – Secure the most informed feedback on open questions. Weigh all questions according to the priority of the issues being examined and the comprehensiveness of the questions on each one. Then, ask more questions.
5. “Sharing the canvas” – If your questions fall short in helping you find answers that resolve a given issue, recruit relevant experts and put them to work filling any gaps. Make the questioning process a sharable canvas to create trust and buy-in among all parties.
6. “Answering questions” – Take deep dives into the material and hold comprehensive meetings to review your findings. When your team responds to questions, don’t complicate their answers. Create a FAQ file that lists all questions and answers, organized by subject. When it comes to open issues, an elaborate FAQ file will enable you to find the best answers – that is, conclusions that lead to decisions.
7. “Calibrating answers” – As part of creating your FAQs, take the answers to all your questions through an iterative process. Assign expert reviewers to weigh the team’s answers and ensure their validity. Polish your answers to make sure they work well together, so you can use them to make decisions.
8. “Drawing conclusions” – Align your team’s “strategic and tactical” decisions and the actions that flow from those choices. Considering all the high-level work your team has accomplished, your answers should work in concert. Before you move to the next workflow, consider your team’s level of conviction about its conclusions. Refine conclusions that seem weak or inadequate.
9. “Preparing for alignment” – Connect the dots among your exploration’s conclusions and your recommendations. Your exploration of all issues, followed by expert conclusions, should transform the problems you’re addressing into knowns and, thus, make them more manageable.
10. “Conducting alignment” – After you achieve alignment, show how data is driving your recommendations. Get all relevant leaders to line up behind your team’s most important recommendations and the actions they will inspire.
11. “Identifying decisions” – Connect all decisions to your team’s exploratory work. Demonstrate how your “exploration, conclusions and recommendations” connect. Determine the actions people will need to take to “unlock execution.”
12. “Preparing content” – The best decisions depend on reliable, definitive content derived from the Decision Sprint’s exhaustive exploratory phase. Sound decisions produce firm “yes” or “no” answers. Format your content to make it readily accessible by using FAQs accompanied by visuals and demonstrations.
13. “Conducting decision meetings” – The format of your decision-making meetings depends on the size of your organization. These “output meetings” seek to achieve firm yea-or-nay decisions, followed by timely actions. Assign small teams to execute the changes your organization institutes based on these decisions. Decision-making meetings must include the executives who can green light the team’s choices and request additional information or revised recommendations. The people in your decision-making meetings should have sufficient power to make any necessary trade-offs.

Technological advances, including AI, can support the decision-making process.

The pace of change within the business world has gone into hyperdrive. New AI tools will only exacerbate this trend, bringing even more change to management and business operations. These developments underscore the need for strategies and methods that allow leaders to solve problems and make good decisions under pressure while maximizing the productive role digital tools can play in this process.

“With AI enabled by Decision Sprint, there can be quantifiable data about the progression of ideas and their expected results into the future.”

Digital tools can support most Decision Sprint activities. For example, software can facilitate information-sharing and asynchronous work among team members and help administrators track questions, data and deadlines. The best software also grants you better information security. In addition, AI can help teams spot patterns they might have missed, provide tremendous research support, and help teams identify gaps or errors in their information or their thinking.

About the Author

Silicon Valley innovator Atif Rafiq held chief executive positions at McDonald’s, Volvo and MGM Resorts and filled executive roles in other corporations. A P&L expert and frequent public speaker, he founded the software app Ritual and serves on several boards of directors.