Beware of Analysis Paralysis

The two aspects: 

• What should be the targets of automation?
• What should be the vendor of choice?

The above are extremely important. And because they are important, the organizations and teams working programs for Change spend a lot of time on this.

Many a times, there is ample amount of data to reach a decision, but the group works with the sample of data that is ineffective.

Let’s look at an example:

I want to purchase a new house. There are factors that will help me decide. The budget, the location, the area, the community, the connectivity, the reputation of construction company, the liveability index, and many more.

I have seen many of my friends visiting numerous houses and collecting the data. Many times more than the data needed. But they haven’t taken a decision to go with something even if that fits the bill.

The same can be said about a purchase of a new car. So many options – but no decision.

We rely a lot on the known data to take decisions. That’s natural! But this activity should be time bound and with set targets.

Analysis paralysis is a term used when something is overanalysed or overthought. A situation that can cause a forward movement to become paralysed. 

That is, no solution or course of action is decided. A person becomes lost evaluating ideas or information required to make a decision.

In IT terms – you may have all the data you need to take decisions about what and how to proceed. But you continue to analyse and don’t move forward with the initial phase of the program. Another way to look at it is, you are looking at the wrong subset of the data to come to a conclusion that is not applicable to all.

Simply put, to avoid such a situation is in the best interest of everyone. How to do that?

> Prioritize your decisions. Identify important ones and give them more attention. Ask these -

• How important is the decision for you?
• Will its result affect the business development?
• Is it essential to make the decision now?
• What are the side effects are decision going wrong?

> Break decisions into smaller steps.

• That will allow looking at smaller achievable phases.

>Perfection or completion? 

• In many cases completion is more important that perfection. Being perfect is an iterative process.

When starting with Automation or Transformation programs, care should be taken to avoid this time slicing the analysis.