Formal decision making

work in progress

Formal decision making processes can take longer then informal decision making and they appear less flexible.

So why making these decisions in the first place?

Before going deeper into the question lets define the words formal and informal .

Comparison formal decision (and sk) vs informal

Formal decision making

Clear about who participates when and how in the decision making if documented properly.

Special for sk:

Builds equality and trust longterm way meaning the longer its used the more trust it builds.
transparent

Informal

Unclear about who participated when and how in the decision making.

Is faster in adhoc use and is completely adjustable because there is no obvious protocol
intransparent

That gives already a clue about why formal decision making has advantages. The nicest thing about formal decision making is that , if the specific process itself is good and executed well, it builds a lot of trust.

The clearer the form of the process becomes the more people dare to participate. and the more people of a group participate in a process the more valid the found solutions get.

Informal decisions, to be sustained, require a lot of trust and can easily lead to confusion, especially in growing and changing groups, and by that slow down workflow significantly in the long run. This can lead to frustration and loss of trust. The big advantage of informal decisions is that they are fast in the short run and need less communication.

The speed of informal decisions is only short lived. Though they can be implemented really quickly their intransparency will create the need for reasoning, especially for important decisions. Communicating this reasoning properly so that it does not undermine trust will take longer as using a trusted formal process.