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Matrix Decision Making

Posted by timothy on from the just-like-tron dept.

Eli Singer writes "I'm writing to recommend The Power of the 2x2 Matrix , the best book on decision-making I've seen in a long time. The book presents 55 decision matrix models by some of the best minds out there including Stephen Covey ( 7 Habits of Highly Effective People ) and Geoffrey Moore (Crossing the Chasm). Although the book is primarily for business decision-making, the matrices really force you to think about your own personal and professional life." No bones about it, Singer is not a disinterested party: he helped with research that went into it. Read on for the rest of his review, below; there's also a link to a sample chapter of the book. (The Globe and Mail recently reviewed this book as well.) The Power of the 2x2 Matrix author Alex Lowy & Phil Hood pages 320 publisher Jossey-Bass rating 8 reviewer Eli Singer ISBN 0787972924 summary Using 2x2 Thinking to solve business problems and make better decisions

I had the pleasure of working with the authors of this book for over a year as a research assistant. Over that time I came to deeply associate with the 2x2 Matrix approach to problem-solving, and believe it is one of the most novel, fun, and effective ways of understanding business and personal dilemmas.

The idea behind 2x2 Matrix problem solving is to simplify any dilemma you're experiencing to its two core, often competing, facets. For example, The Gartner Magic Quadrant evaluates a company's technology solution based on Completeness of Vision and Ability to Execute. These two aspects are then placed on opposing axis of a grid and given hi/low extremes. This instantly generates four quadrants of distinctly different possible scenarios. In this case:

  • Niche Players - Low completeness of vision, low ability to execute
  • Visionaries - High completeness of vision, low ability to execute
  • Challengers - Low completeness of vision, high ability to execute
  • Leaders - High completeness of vision, high ability to execute

The authors, Alex Lowy and Phil Hood, have gone to great lengths to examine outstanding problem solving practices offering both an academic explanation of the theory behind 2x2 modeling, and a profile of 55 of the best decision models out there.

These 55 decision models, presented in short, clear summaries with illustrations and often technology-based case examples (drawn from IBM, Apple, HP, Borland, and the open source world) are the real gold in the book. The models range from highly business-oriented strategy, marketing, and employee-motivation frameworks, to personally oriented frameworks that help structure time, understand personality conflicts, improve leadership skills, and evaluate career transition opportunities.

Chapter 3 is devoted to what the authors call Archetypal Business Dilemmas. The dilemmas presented here speak vividly to the challenges being experienced right now by the open source community:

  • Head vs. Heart The toughest choices are between doing what makes sense, and what feels right.
  • Content vs. Process Content is the what, Process is the how. Success in most things requires mastery of both qualities.

Also, there are a host of technology gurus who have been interviewed and have matrices presented from their work: Charles Fine, author of Clockspeed; Watts Wacker, author of The Deviant's Advantage ; Hal Varian and Carl Shapiro, authors of Information Rules ; Paul Weifels and Geoffrey Moore, authors of Crossing the Chasm; and Joseph Pine and James Gilmore, authors of The Experience Economy.

It is almost impossible to read this book and not compulsively apply these exceptional models to personal life. At the moment I've been working with Stephen Covey's Urgency and Importance matrix.

For many of us, life is filled with tasks that are Urgent, leaving little time for more fundamental and long-term activities necessary for personal and professional development.The Time Management matrix explores two key dimensions, Importance and Urgency:

Importance. Things that are important are reflective of one's values and contribute to achieving higher-priority goals and personal mission. Importance is about results that matter.

Urgency. Urgent things require immediate attention. They tend to be visible, popular with others, and to act on us.

My cell-phone and inbox both feel highly Urgent, and I often answer my messages immediately, despite the fact that in most situations their Importance is questionable. I'm working at shifting away from a crisis-oriented instant response, which is in turn generating more free time to work on the things that are really important to me but don't necessarily jump in front of my face.

Without actually sitting down and plotting how I used my time during a week on the matrix, I would never have had to directly face the multitude of things I was sacrificing just to keep up with my trivial emails. It's the simplicity and clarity of 2x2 modeling that makes it a great tool for wrestling with dilemmas, and generating deep insights.

Most will find the book an easy and engaging read, especially the framework sections. The downside, if there is one, is the sheer volume of great frameworks. One can only absorb a few at a time and for this reason I'd recommend reading slowly, jumping from the table of contents right to parts that sound the most interesting.

You can purchase The Power of the 2x2 Matrix from bn.com; a sample chapter is available here. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews. To see your own review here, carefully read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.

25 of 296 comments (clear)

  1. I Find The Self Help Books Useful by dcocos · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If I go to a company and I see "How to Win Friends and Influence People", "Who Moved My Cheese","The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" or "Managment for Dummies" on a desk I know that it is not a place I want to work. To me it is the same as seeing "SQL for Dummies" on a lead DBA's desk if you are that far along in your career you should be well beyond those books.

    1. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 3, Insightful

      YES. This, like every other instance of management 13375P33X I've ever seen, is pseudo-intellectual blather by pseudo-educated people who lacked the brains and dedication to ever learn anything worth knowing. Good managers learn by common sense and OJT; those who think management can be condensed into buzzword-laden bestsellers are inevitably terrible at actually doing it.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    2. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by dcocos · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Oh, I don't know. Carnegie's book said a lot of fairly harmless things, like "say thank-you to people", and "try to remember what things the other person is interested in".

      My point is that if you have to learn this from a book and it is not common sense then you probably won't be a very good manager.

    3. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by khallow · · Score: 2, Insightful
      Must be nice to have options.

      Ultimately, unless you're dead, you have options.

    4. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by cheezit · · Score: 2, Insightful

      "Common sense" and "OJT" are inherently intinctive and don't require reflection or self-evaluation in any kind of structured way.

      If you can suppress the gag reflex enough to get thru books like this there is often a kernel of an idea (that you may not even agree with) that makes you reconsider why you do what you do at work. And that can be helpful, especially to someone who isn't formally trained.

      --
      Premature optimization is the root of all evil
    5. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by mdf356 · · Score: 3, Insightful
      While I agree that buzzword-laden bestsellers may not be helpful, I disagree with the sentiment you express by "Good managers learn by common sense and OJT". Your statement implies to me that you believe there's no way to teach management. *Every* skill can be factored into repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices. Else we wouldn't have universities.

      I also understand that no amount of classroom learning is enough; actual experience is needed. But that experienec is much more immediately useful when one has a solid thoretical and intellectual understanding to build upon. Management should be no different from engineering here.

      You could just as easily say that you don't trust programmers with a copy of K&R and Harbison&Steele; they should learn by common sense and OJT.

      Cheers, Matt

      --
      Terrorist, bomb, al Qaeda, nuclear, yellowcake, kill, assassinate. Carnivore is dead... long live Echelon.
    6. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by Cuff · · Score: 2, Insightful

      When I see books like this on people's desks, I am thankful those people are working to become better at their jobs - a healthy sign the company is hiring good people. Reading is only one part of becoming better at what you do but it is an important part. This certainly applies to technology. You have to write code to be a good programmer but reading technical books will help make you a better one. Perhaps I am reading too much into your post but I don't understand how someone can categorically dismiss management books. Are there any you find useful/good? Is your opinion possibly a reflection of the number of bad managers out there rather than commentary about the quality of the books? BTW, I particularly enjoyed "Seven Habits" and I thought most of it applied both to my professional and personal life.

    7. Re:I Find The Self Help Books Useful by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your statement implies to me that you believe there's no way to teach management.

      I do not deny that there may be some way to teach management in a way that would improve the way management is generally done. I do deny, however, that the way management is currently taught bears any resemblance to such a method.

      *Every* skill can be factored into repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices.

      Certainly many skills can. I suspect that "every" is overstating the case.

      Else we wouldn't have universities.

      Well, ideally the purpose of a university education is to teach more that just "repeatable, trainiable, learnable units and best practices" -- it should teach critical thinking skills that can be applied to a wide variety of situations, not just buzzwords and learning-by-rote. This, IMO, is one of the major problems with the current state of "business education" -- business courses are such pablum compared to those in just about any technical or liberal arts field that people with management degrees have never learned to stretch their brains.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
  2. Turning off that cellphone by ZeroGee · · Score: 3, Insightful
    Quote:
    My cell-phone and inbox both feel highly Urgent, and I often answer my messages immediately, despite the fact that in most situations their Importance is questionable. I'm working at shifting away from a crisis-oriented instant response, which is in turn generating more free time to work on the things that are really important to me but don't necessarily jump in front of my face.

    I've recently stopped checking voicemails incessantly, and I feel strangely liberated as a result. I'm so used to being tied in to broadband at home and at the office, and 2.5G on the run, that it's nice to be blissfully unavailable once in a while. Whether I leave my cellphone at home, or prioritize my current activities higher than the interruption of the vibrating electronics, it's amazing how much more peaceful things can seem.
  3. Binary Thinking by JoeWalsh · · Score: 5, Insightful

    2x2 matrices are sometimes useful, but more often they just encourage us to limit the number of possibilities we consider. We're so prone to thinking in terms of binary choices anyway that what we need is something to help us see the multitude of possibilities rather than something that narrows the scope.

  4. Missing the point by KDan · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The goal of these decision matrices is not to actually make decisions, but to validate decisions - to get everyone to agree that the decision is the correct one, which is where most of the hard work lies in corporate decision-making. Generally there's plenty of people able to make the right decision, whether they be the local leader, an outside consultant, etc, without needing any gimmicks like "decision matrices". But getting everyone to agree on a decision and put their will behind it and implement it - boy, that takes all the shiny stuff you can muster.

    Daniel

    --
    Carpe Diem
    1. Re:Missing the point by ProtonMotiveForce · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Exactly.

      Decision making is better done by the brain in it's natural state. That's what the brain does. Using this mechanism to _make_ the decision is like asking a computer to do face recognition - it takes an astonishing amount of programming and power to do something a 1 month old baby can do.

      To validate a decision, however, it could be useful.

  5. Sounds like quantitative analysis of nonsense by gpinzone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Geez, you could make 2x2 matrixes of anything and make it sound like you're accomplishing something. How do you guard against backfitting a matrix to agree with a preferred solution? I didn't expect the review to give a complete understanding of this method, but I wish it were just a little more informative.

  6. Scott Adams said it better by Tri0de · · Score: 5, Insightful

    simple but effective boss matrix:

    Evil
    Harmless

    by
    Competent
    Incompetent

    Thus, if
    -Competent, Evil deal with by steering towards co workers,
    -if Incompetent Harmless, hang out with, senl lots of 'feel good' memos and cutsie emails,
    -if Incompetent Evil - HIDE
    -if Competent Harmless then upwardly delegate as much work as possible.

    --
    "Everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts."
  7. Completely invalid review by mat+catastrophe · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I had the pleasure of working with the authors of this book for over a year as a research assistant.

    This admission does not allow you to review the book. This is kind of like letting a priest sell you a bible, or a politician tell you how great his party is doing. It's a little *too* close to conflict of interest.

    --
    sig not found
  8. Love vs. Fear Matrix by gpinzone · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From the movie Donnie Darko:

    Donnie: Life isn't that simple. I mean who cares if Ling Ling returns the wallet and keeps the money? It has nothing to do with either fear or love.

    Kitty Farmer: Fear and love are the deepest of human emotions.

    Donnie: Okay. But you're not listening to me. There are other things that need to be taken into account here. Like the whole spectrum of human emotion. You can't just lump everything into these two categories and then just deny everything else!

  9. A real recommendation, not a placebo by Charles+Dodgeson · · Score: 5, Insightful
    My wife teaches Judgment and Decision Making in a business school, and has reviewed a number of textbooks. She hasn't commented on this one, and I don't know whether she is even aware of it. But from reading the description of it, this is likely to be what she calls an "airport book". That is, a book that will sell to business travelers in airports. While there might be some research and value burried in the book, these tend to work like placebos. If you do anything at all to consciously think about your decision making, you are likely to have some improvement.

    The problem with airport books is that they are exceedinly selective in the research that they draw upon, and it is never fairly evaluated. Also conclusions are jumped to with great alacrity.

    If you really want a good decision making book, my first recommendation is Jonathan Baron's "Thinking and Deciding". It is an undergraduate textbook, which I think is very geek friendly. Indeed, it is a bit too geek friendly for my wife's students, so she uses more basic text books.

    I don't know what the reviewed book contains. I do know how management people use what they call the "2 by 2 matrix". If that is the only tool discussed in the book, then one should probably give it a miss. Any decision making book that doesn't discuss Bayesian reasoning is not something I would recommend to any geek. Baron's book I would. (And I have no connection with Baron).

    --
    Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
  10. Re:The Importance of Market Speak by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    the reason you are still lowly is because you are still spelling "synergy" as "cinergy" (which would only be correct in the movie industry).

  11. Horse crap! by wurp · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I don't know much about HtWFaIP or WHMC, but Seven Habits is good stuff. Most books are focused on letting you do the same stuff you've been doing more efficiently. Seven Habits tells you to figure out better stuff to do, and some tips on how. You are deceiving yourself if you think you just naturally do a good job of ignoring what people tell you you must do and instead do the right thing. It is very helpful to have a book to remind you of why and how you should do the right thing, even if you already know. And I'll guarantee that you haven't thought out how to do the right thing as well as Covey has.

    By your argument, anyone with Design Patterns on their desk is a fool, because they should already know that stuff intuitively. That's true, to a degree - the stuff in Design Patterns should look very familiar. But you haven't spent the time weighing the pros & cons and communicating them clearly that Gamma et al have, and you need Design Patterns. If you think you don't, you probably need it more.

  12. Sounds like the PowerPoint Method to me. by Cerebus · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Color me skeptical, but I find it hard to believe that complex issues can be reduced to a simple 2x2 matrix. My initial impression is such a method will do nothing than promote false dichotomies to the detriment of real analysis.

    It does, however, sound like the ideal method to present choices in PowerPoint.

    That's not a compliment, just so we're clear.

    --
    -- Cerebus
  13. Just formulate a LPP... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    My idea of "matrix decisionmaking" would be examining the variables and constraints, creating a linear set of equations therefrom, putting them in standard form, throwing the coefficients into a matrix, and applying the Gauss-Jordan method and/or simplex algorithm to them to find the coefficients that max or min Z.

    Or you could graph it if there aren't too many dimensions...

    But you couldn't do much linear programming with only four (2x2) elements.

    Perhaps then this book could make my life easier!

  14. Re:This immediately brought to mind Pascal's Wager by dentar · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The problem with Pascal's wager is that it assumes there is one and only one God, and that by not believing in him/her/it you are bound for Hell and by believing in him/her/it you are not bound for Hell.

    Suppose there are two or more Gods and you believe, but you believe in the wrong one?

    Also, how can you "make yourself believe" something? You believe based upon what information you have, nothing more, nothing less. Something either makes sense and is believable or it does not and is not.

    --
    -- I am. Therefore, I think!
  15. false choices by tunesmith · · Score: 2, Insightful

    the 2x2 matrix is often just a glorified illustration of the ability to recognize false choices. It's not so much inspiring that an executive would whip out a 2x2 matrix after many months of corporate strategy meetings, as it is depressing that so much time was wasted beforehand.

    Any time you feel a conflict, it is because there are two (or more) elements warring against each other. Sometimes it's just a matter of realizing that we've told ourselves that we can only have one or the other, and discovering that we can instead say "both", which is what the upper right areas of these little matrices are about. Most of us don't need months of corporate meetings to recognize that.

    false choices... dichotomies... double-binds... 2x2 matrices... all related.

    --
    skkkoooonnnggggkkk ptui
  16. I Find The SelfHelp Books Useful-Missing in action by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    "My point is that if you have to learn this from a book and it is not common sense then you probably won't be a very good manager."

    Common sense is rather uncommon.

  17. BULLSHIT by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Faking things initially, will eventually lead to the action being natural if you keep repeating it. For example, I was shy, scared, etc to approach girls at clubs/school/etc. Then I read pickupguide.com, fastseduction.com (and some other stuff), and started faking being confident. After approaching 50 or so girls, I started becoming confident. Guess what ? faking it did me a lot of good....