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Ashwin

Become a Better Decision Maker

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Decision Making

As a tech leader, you’ll make decisions multiple times daily. Some of these can be simple decisions and others more impactful.

Leadership decisions impact everyone working in your team, so it is critical that you have proven tools in your arsenal.

There are two effective decision-making tools.

  1. Decision matrix
  2. Decision trees

Let’s start with the first one.

#1 Decision Matrix

A decision matrix is a decision-making table you can use to evaluate different options

It is a fairly straightforward tool when you have a set of choices and criteria to evaluate them.

How to create a decision matrix?

  • Define your goal or problem statement
  • Make a list of options
  • Define the criteria against which each option must be evaluated
  • Assign weights to each criterion based on their importance (higher weight refers to higher importance)
  • Score each option against every criterion (thus creating a table or matrix)
  • Calculated weighted score for each option (by multiplying raw score with the weight for each entry)
  • Compare the total weighted score for options

The option with the highest weighted score is most probably the better decision to go with.

Here’s a sample decision matrix.

However, a decision matrix is not very useful when the options or criteria have relationships between them.

For example, a criterion might be more important when combined with another one and not otherwise.

That’s when you need to use a decision tree.

#2 Decision tree

A decision tree is a map of the possible outcomes of a series of related choices.

A decision tree has 3 components:

  • A decision node represents a decision to be made (typically represented as squares)
  • A chance node shows the probability of certain results (typically represented as circles)
  • An end node shows the outcome of a given path (typically represented as triangles)

Here’s a fairly simple decision tree that helps you decide what to do on a given day.

A trivial decision tree (https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/decision-tree)

How to draw a decision tree:

  1. Start with the major decision to be made (e.g., buy a house or not)
  2. Add chance and decision nodes to expand the tree
  3. Include the probability and the cost of each option, to make a numerical decision
  4. Continue to expand until each line reaches an end
  5. Calculate the expected value (EV) of each line. The one with the highest EV is the better path to take

Here’s an example decision tree for a company deciding on “what app to build next”.

A more complex decision tree (https://www.lucidchart.com/pages/decision-tree)

In the above example:

  • A company has to choose between 3 choices as their next app to build
    • Build a gaming app (costing $75k)
    • Build a productivity app (costing $50k)
    • Revamp existing app (costing $30k)
  • For each of these choices, there are forecasted revenues and the probability of achieving them
  • Expected value (EV) of revenue is the probabilistic sum of all choices in the path and the cost

Here’s an excellent article from Lucidchart on how to draw a decision tree.

One drawback is that decision trees can become more complex as you add more choices and probabilities. That’s when something like an influence diagram helps – but we will reserve it for another day.

Hopefully, this post has given you some solid tools for your next big decision.

A Framework to Acing Your Next Tech Presentation

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A tech presentation is daunting, especially when the stakes are high, such as presenting to senior leadership or prospective clients.

But a presentation is also an excellent opportunity to deliver your message. A group of attentive people, listening to every word you speak. It doesn’t get better than this.

So how can you ace it? Here’s a framework you can use for your next big presentation.

#1 Start the presentation with “what’s in it for them”

In a presentation, everyone invests their most valuable asset—their time.

Start by addressing what’s in it for them and what they’ll gain in return for their time.

Here’s an example intro slide.

Presentation slide to explain what's in it for the listeners
A slide for what’s in it for the listeners

In the above intro slide we:

  • Give them a reason to care (preventing financial loss)
  • Establish relatability (reference to a past outage)
  • Instill a sense of responsibility (towards their employees)

#2 Explain the purpose behind your presentation

Now transition to your “whys” after establishing what your audience can take away.

  • Why are you presenting it now? (because a major e-commerce event is coming up soon…)
  • What changed from last time? (you have better tools, technology, people now…)
  • Why should they care? (employee happiness score was low due to such recurring outages…)

Highlight your competitors’ strategies at this point.

Having established the reasons why your audience should listen to you now, let’s proceed to actions.

#3 What’s your CTA (call to action)

Once your audience understands the message, clearly articulate what actions you need them to take.

Are you asking for budget approval?

Are you asking for their time commitment?

Are you asking for a new team?

Be very clear about your ask.

This is where most of us fall short. Don’t make that mistake.

Here’s an example call to action slide.

A sample CTA slide
A sample CTA slide

#4 What does the listener (or the team/organization) miss if your CTA is not done

Remind the audience of what the organization stands to lose if the necessary actions are not taken.

By now they should have the message.

But it is essential to reiterate so that the point is delivered.

Here are some examples:

There will be a missed opportunity to save costs and improve margins.

Customer experience will take a hit.

Our brand will suffer a bad PR.

Be very specific and make it impactful.

#5 How does the roadmap for CTA look like…

End your presentation with a plan of action.

Everyone wants to see a plan.

The plan gives confidence that you can walk the talk.

Make it very simple and call out only key milestones.

Here’s an example roadmap.

A presentation slide for a sample CTA roadmap
A sample CTA Roadmpa

That’s it! You now have a compelling framework to apply in your next big presentation.

To recap:

  • Start with “what’s in it for them”
  • Explain the purpose behind your presentation
  • What’s your CTA (call to action)
  • What does the listener (or the team/organization) miss if your CTA is not done
  • How does the roadmap for CTA look like

All the best! You’ll rock it…

In case you haven’t read, Presentation Zen is an amazing book for every presenter our there. Do yourself a favour and grab a copy!

Understanding the Paradigm of AI Tools, Apps and Agents

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If you’ve been following the advancements in the AI (Artificial Intelligence) space, it will be no surprise to you that tons of models and apps are released every single day.

AI solutions come in various forms and solve a wide range of use cases. Though the evolution is still at its nascent stage, I see a few trends emerging.

In this post, I talk about three types or categories of AI solutions – AI tools, AI assistants, AI agents – why they exist and what problems they solve.

Here’s a comparison of the various types of AI solutions, their applicability, and ease of implementation.

AI Paradigm

Let’s start with the first one.

#1 AI Tools

This is something most of us are familiar with.

AI tools are software applications that using artificial intelligence and models, to perform specific tasks and solve problems.

ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity are good examples of this.

What are their characteristics?

  • They offer a standard interface to interact (web app, mobile app, etc.)
  • They are useful for general-purpose use cases (e.g., summarizing an article, tightening a paragraph, understanding a specific topic, etc.)
  • With prompt engineering, they can understand your context and generate better content

They are good as a general-purpose vehicle, covering majority of an average person’s needs.

#2 AI Assistants

How do they differ from an AI tool? Not by a huge margin.

AI Assistants are a specific adaptation of AI tools that make it easier and simpler to use an application or a website

Have you seen the AI assistant in Notion, that helps you write? It is an AI assistant.

  • AI assistants are very context-specific and assist you with specific activities
  • They make use of one or more AI tools behind the scenes
  • With continuous usage, they can adapt and assist you better

#3 AI Agents

AI Agents take the game to the next level.

AI Agents are designed to perceive the environment, process signals, and take actions to achieve specific goals.

These agents can be software-based or physical entities and are commonly built using artificial intelligence techniques.

AI agents typically have 3 distinct components:

  • Sensors & Perception Layer – process signals and find out what’s happening in the environment
  • Skills Layer – to examine different options based on inputs
  • Decision Layer – to take actions and send it to the target environment

This space is still nascent. Auto-GPT, BabyAGI are some frameworks gaining traction.

There is consensus that most growth will be here – to automate workflows and perform actions that otherwise require complex decision-making.

To conclude…

AI Paradigm can be seen as a combination of general-purpose AI tools, specialized AI apps, and sophisticated AI agents. Each differs in its purpose, ease of use, and applicability. AI agents that mimic humans is where I anticipate huge growth in the future!