Systematic vs intuitive decision making and the Pareto principle: Effective decision-making for project teams

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss some of the primary factors that inhibit efficient decision-making in teams and propose some methods to help facilitate the process more effectively. Teams often have a difficult time navigating the decision-making process. Even with a well-defined process, decision-making can be derailed by failing to set and maintain priorities or by ineffectively evaluating the significance of individual decisions that need to be made within the larger project scope. Design/methodology/approach – This article reviews some of the applicable literature related to decision-making and synthesizes it into an approach that can be used by teams to facilitate their decision-making processes. Findings – There are three major impediments to efficient and effective decision-making in teams. Using methods for diagnosing and triaging the nature of decisions, teams can become more effective and efficient in their decision-making processes. Originality/value – This article synthesizes a number of strands of research from various subdisciplines in management to develop an approach that can be used by project teams to more effectively facilitate their decision-making processes. © Emerald Group Publishing Limited.