RAPID Decision-Making
Read this article that goes more in-depth on the RAPID decision-making tool.
This provides a few examples to show how it can be used and why having such a tool can improve decision-making. In the RAPID example, the BI analyst or team will likely have the most influence on the "I" or "Input" part of the process. This is where additional information can be injected into the discussion.
Even if RAPID does not feel like the tool for your business, having a structured and well-informed process can make all the difference, so you can always do some research and find one that suits your business culture and decision-making needs.
The Benefits of RAPID
RAPID can help people be more thoughtful about how decisions should be made. In doing so, the tool helps give real accountability to the right people, allowing power to be shared, but also setting useful boundaries. In turn, involving the right people, while taking others out of the loop or minimizing their involvement, saves time.
Greater clarity around who is involved in a decision and who is not can also generate greater buy-in. As Joyce McGee, executive director of The Justice Project, an advocacy nonprofit, put it, "Even though there are people who aren’t involved, they’re ecstatic just to know who is involved, and what the decision-making process entails. They feel more engaged just from understanding something that had been opaque to them before".
This clarity can also lead to benefits that are not directly related to the decisions at hand, or even on the horizon. As John Fitzpatrick, executive director of the Texas High School Project noted, "We were able to hire higher quality people for key senior management positions as a result of using RAPID. I was able to sit down with top-tier candidates and demonstrate the clear lines of authority and responsibility they would have, and it allayed concerns about the chain of command and their scope of decision making working with me".
Finally, involving the right people in decision making can drive better decisions, which means more impact. RAPID helps organizations achieve their goals – more efficiently and more effectively.
Most organizations can benefit from RAPID. The keys are: understanding how the tool works, figuring out what your organization needs from RAPID, and assessing whether the timing is right to introduce it. In the next section of this article, we’ll explore what the side effects and trade-offs of using RAPID can be. Then we’ll use the experiences of Aspire Public Schools, a California-based charter-school developer, to illustrate how the tool works. Finally, we’ll step back and consider how to tell if your organization is ready for RAPID and discuss some of the ideal pre-conditions for getting the most out of it.