Don’t Just Search for Consent, Obtain Commitment

Looking to Achieve a Commitment for Vision, Targets, Success, Actions and Ownership?

When commitment is lacking, it’s a sure indication of a "planned" failure. When a project fails, everybody says, “I knew it.” It’s therefore everybody’s responsibility to ensure 100% commitment. However, commitments are often merely the illusion of consent: wanting to do something together or agreeing to something, as well as being convinced of the necessity of the action, is by no means a commitment. When a project fails, everybody experiences the pain of failure, then the desire to control, and finally frustration and loss of investment and motivation.

The Standish Group reported that 84% of IT projects partially or completely fail. The top two success factors are user involvement und executive management support. It’s important to obtain commitment, especially because experts only commit themselves to a project if they are personally convinced it will be successful.

How does the DecisionMaker work here?

Experts only commit themselves to a project if they themselves are convinced of its success. By using the DecisionMaker, you know how far or close you are to a commitment in mere seconds. Then your team is empowered to obtain a true commitment. Having a clear process to a jointly supported decision that all are committed to have all the necessary resources for success.

Digitized Decision Making Management (dDMM) guarantees user input and commitments with management and all stakeholders. The DecisionMaker ensures that all can truly commit. It works because reservations, risks and hidden conflicts are identified in early phases. The Commitment Process involves everyone 100% and places everyone at eye level under the obligation to contribute their competencies with a clear focus for success.

How do I use it?

You can lead your team to a commitment by using your KiE Scales interactively or with a Composed Decision Making Process. The Commitment Process works reliably and guarantees a result. Before the Commitment Process, you should establish governance, cooperation and sufficient quality of the story or task already through a Decision Making Process. You have to create a Decision Making Process to share the Decision Making ID with you participants.

• To make a common understanding, select your KiE Scale for understanding.
• To make a first commitment, select your KiE Scale for committing the topic. Your team is often already committed to the topic. In this case you are sparing everybody’s time and in some cases drama. In the case of success, commitment has already been achieved und documented.
• If a commitment is not readily achievable, you can refine proposals using the DecisionMaker to identify risks and work out necessary measures using the Resource Question. The result of the first KiE Scale shows how close you are to a commitment. To find out what resources are needed, ask first with a KiE Scale about the obstacles preventing a commitment. Make a commitment that all obstacles are identified.
• Use ideation to find out, what resources and measures are necessary to reach the commitment with your team. Proof always if the measures are within the governance and premises for the project.
• Repeat the second step and try to bring about a commitment with the refined measures. Typically, experienced teams need one to two iterations.

The final commitment is easy to achieve in a few cycles and improves the implementation phase as a success factor.

The DecisionMaker’s Composed Decision Making Process allows you save your most frequently used Decision Making Processes like the Commitment Process as a composed Decision Making Process (cDMp).

• Create a cDMp, select “CREATE COMPOSED DM PROCESS.” Type a title for your Process select “CREATE”.
• Choose a KiE Scale for understanding, first commitment, identify obstacles, commit for completeness of obstacles, ideation for resources and final commitment with resources. Your team will learn best with a repeated Commitment Process.

As a result, the team has a jointly-supported sequence: What has to be done, what will not be done, and the order in which to tackle what has to be done.

With the commitment process, a team will become increasingly self-responsible instead of following an authoritarian or participatory decision.