The ISLAGIATT Decision making process is a tongue in cheek acronym. It stands for: It Seemed Like A Good Idea At The Time. It’s a slightly humorous phrase, but often many decisions are made like this that should be actually assessed…
Summary by The World of Work Project
The ISLAGIATT Decision Making Process
Sam: “Why on earth did we decide to do that?!”
Alex: “No one remembers but ISLAGIATT!”
Or something like that…
Learning More
Thinking about what we do from different perspectives and with others is very helpful for decision making. Tools like the reframing matrix process help us do this.
This is partly because we all have thinking habits and cognitive biases that restrict our creativity. In particular, these decision making biases often lead us towards bad (or irrational) decisions. Of course, nudges can also lead us to decisions that might not really be in our best interest.
Solving problems as a team using things like The A3 Problem Solving Process improves our problem solving. Similarly, drilling into issues with the 5 Whys helps us understand root causes more and creating an ease/benefit matrix helps us decide what to focus on in the first place. When we are actually working on things like this in groups it’s useful to use techniques like silent brainstorming to get the best results.
To learn more about creativity, innovation and problem solving, you might enjoy the third of our three podcasts specifically on these topics. It focuses mainly on cognitive processes:
The World of Work Project View
We really don’t need to say any more about the ISLAGIATT Decision Making Process… We just think it’s a fun phrase and so often apt! Though, of course, nearly everyone tries to post-rationalize their decisions. Particularly if they turn out to have been good ones…
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Sources and Feedback
There are no references for this that we’re aware of. Someone came up with the phrase, but we’re not sure who. If you know, let us know…
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