Virtual First | Communication

Ease decision-making delays

When you’re working across time zones, decision-making bottlenecks can stall progress and slow everyone down. Skip the decision-making limbo and aim for fast, clear calls that get everyone aligned and moving forward.

10 MIN READ | PERSONAL PRACTICE

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Step 1: Provide clarity to prevent bottlenecks

Kick off a project with a DACI framework to clearly define roles and responsibilities and help guide the process from idea to delivery. To keep things moving, clarify who’s approving what, when, and how they’re contributing. Involving more approvers than necessary can lead to uncertainty and delays, causing decision-making bottlenecks. To keep things moving, clarify who’s approving what, when, and how they’re contributing.

Step 2: Manage reviewer expectations

If you're requesting a review, give folks a heads-up early so they can plan ahead and help manage expectations during the feedback process. This helps approvers allocate their time effectively and commit to a full read-through, which reduces the likelihood of rushed or incomplete feedback and fragmented, back-and-forth communication that can slow down decision-making, create confusion, and lead to project delays.

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In addition to shared documentation to keep strategic goals clear, consider sending messaging and calendar reminders to ensure everyone is aware of the review timeline. To keep things clear, stagger review cycles so people aren’t leaving feedback simultaneously.

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Step 3: Align on communication tools

Notification overload can lead to misunderstandings and delays. To address this issue, establish clear guidelines on which tools to use for specific types of communication. For instance, using Jira for task updates and Slack for urgent or clarifying messages, while reserving Zoom for discussion, debate, and decision-making can help reduce unnecessary exchanges and streamline how conclusions are drawn.

Step 4: Clarify boundaries to support decision-making autonomy

When possible, try to eliminate the need for multiple voices by setting clear guidelines around what decisions can be made independently versus those that require feedback or approval from leadership, other team members or cross functional collaborators. For example, standard practices or low-risk tasks may be shipped directly, while those with broader strategic impact may require buy-in from designated approvers. Spelling out these boundaries upfront helps speed things up and gives people confidence to make the call.

Step 5: Use decision tools

When it’s time to weigh in all feedback received, you may find yourself conflicted and at odds with approvers, stuck in a decision-making rut once more. This is where tools like decision trees come in handy, as they help you visually map out and think through each possibility in a structured way. If you find yourself blocked when it comes to the final hurdle, use this decision tree template to help you map out the options, considerations, and possible outcomes of your decision.

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Build the habit

Tomorrow: Map out all key decision points across a new project and ensure every role and deadline is clearly identified.
Next week: Recognize common decision bottlenecks your team has faced recently by asking team members to pinpoint where delays happen and why.
Quarterly: Review and update your team’s decision-making roles, to improve clarity, autonomy, and efficiency in future projects.

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