a triarchy press publication
The Decision Loom: A Design for Interactive Decision-Making in Organizations
by Vincent Barabba
Publication Date: 30th November 2011
No of pages: 292
Book type: Paperback
ISBN: 978-1-908009-44-9
List Price: £25.00
Offer Price: £19.50
Epub version: available here
Kindle versions: amazon.co.uk | amazon.com
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For customers in North America, books are printed in, and shipped from, the USA.
Bad Decisions
About the author
About the book
Contents and Excerpt
Readership
Praise for The Decision Loom
Reviews
Bad decisions and bad decision-making systems 
Decision-making has been one of the principal victims of ‘modern’ thinking. The ‘analytical’ approach has, of course, brought us vaccines, electricity and the internal combustion engine. But, in seeking to break things down into their component parts and improve the parts, governments and businesses continue to make some astonishingly bad decisions.
What’s more, many enterprises still pay close attention to ‘decisions’ whilst overlooking the bigger picture: the organizational system within which those decisions get made.
The Decision Loom: A Design for Interactive Decision-Making in Organizations sets out to change our ‘analytical’ habit and invites enterprises to consider the bigger picture. Author Vince Barabba explains an elegantly simple approach to making better decisions. He calls this approach ‘The Decision Loom’ and bases it on Systems Thinking, Design Thinking and Complexity Theory.
About the author
In an extraordinary career as political campaign survey researcher, business market researcher, intelligence gatherer, and knowledge developer, Vince Barabba has helped Governors, Congressmen and US Presidents – as well as the Boards of several of America’s leading corporations – take some critically important decisions.
In each role, he has taken plenty of those decisions himself.
Co-founder and chairman of Market Insight Corporation, Vince serves as a Commissioner of the California Citizen Redistricting Commission, and he is chairman of The State of the USA, a nonprofit corporation providing quality information to the American public on key changing societal, economic, and environmental conditions. He was, until 2003, General Manager of Corporate Strategy and Knowledge Development at General Motors, where he conceived and devised OnStar and MyProductAdvisor.
He is a Past President of the American Statistical Association.
Mr. Barabba twice served as director of the Census Bureau and is the only person to have been appointed to that position by presidents of different political parties. Between his government service and GM assignments, he served as manager of market research for Xerox and director of market intelligence for Eastman Kodak. In recognition of his private and public sector performance, he was been awarded:
- Induction into the Market Research Council's Hall of Fame
- The American Marketing Association’s Parlin Award for leadership in the application of science to marketing research
- The MIT/GM Buck Weaver Award for individuals who have contributed significantly to the advancement of theory and practice in marketing science
- The System Dynamics Society’s Applications Award for the best “real world” application of system dynamics
- The American Marketing Association’s Explor Award (through the Market Insight Corporation) granted to organizations who have demonstrated the most innovative uses of technology in applications that advance research, online or otherwise
- The Certificate of Distinguished Service for Contribution to the Federal Statistical System from the US Office of Management and Budget
About the book
Drawing on a lifetime of experience, Vince Barabba sets out, in The Decision Loom, the four core capabilities that any organization needs to put in place to make his proposed approach to decision-making work. They cover 1) having an ‘Enterprise Mindset that is open to change’, 2) thinking and acting holistically, 3) having an adaptable business design and 4) using the right combination of problem-solving and decision-making methods.
Part 1 of the book – The Journey – chronicles the author’s professional life, focusing on more than 30 ‘Lessons Learned’. To name just one: ‘Surface and make explicit the underlying assumptions that would have to be true for your particular problem-solving approach to prevail.’ Each lesson is derived from – and illustrated by – his professional experience in major political campaigns and at Xerox, Kodak, GM, the U.S. Census Bureau and elsewhere.
Part 2 describes an ‘Interactive Decision Loom’, sets out the capabilities required to make it work, and sketches an ‘idealized design’ for creating a Decision Loom in your own organization. It focuses on the process of inquiry (which must underpin decision-making), anticipating problems, and the four core organizational (not individual) capabilities needed in a dynamically complex organization (that is to say, all organizations).
The four capabilities all draw on the lessons learned in Part 1 of the book and are illustrated by brief case studies from: LEGO, Xyntéo, Patagonia Clothing, Nintendo, Cisco, and McDonald’s.
If you choose to create a Decision Loom yourself in your own organization, the outcome will be:
Greater interaction across the enterprise leading to an enterprise that is greater than the sum of its parts.
Contents and Excerpt
Foreword: John Pourdehnad
Introduction
Part 1: The Journey
Episode 1: Planting the Seed
Episode 2: Political Campaigns
Episode 3: An Introduction to Public Life
Episode 4: Finally... A Marketing Job in the Private Sector
Episode 5: The Conduct of the 1980 Census
Episode 6: Back to the Private Sector with Eastman Kodak
Episode 7: Getting Started at General Motors
Episode 8: Learning How to Learn
Episode 9: Because the Future is Uncertain
GM Epilogue: An Opportunity Missed
Summary of Lessons Learned
Part 2. The Design of an Interactive Decision Loom Background:
Why a ‘Sketch’?
The Decision Loom…an interactive decision-making process
Capability 1: Having an Enterprise Mindset that is Open to Change
Capability 2: Thinking and Acting Holistically
Capability 3: Being Able to Adapt the Business Design to Changing Conditions
Capability 4: Making Decisions Interactively Using a Variety of Methods
Conclusion
Appendices
Bibliography
Index
Read The Introduction to Part 2: The Design of an Interactive Decision Loom
Readership
This book is a guide for any public, private, government or non-profit organization that needs to put in place a system for making better decisions. Its proposals and conclusions will be of immediate interest to anyone working in (or studying):
- Market research and market analysis
- Opinion polling and surveying
- Knowledge management
- Management Information Systems design and management
- Organization design and decision-making, marketing and corporate strategy at the most senior levels
Praise for the book
"A person could write a good book about two tours as head of the Bureau of Census, under both Republican and Democratic administrations. Or about co-founding a political polling company with Richard Wirthlin and being appointed to important government positions by four U.S. Presidents. Or about heading market research for earlier era technology companies like Kodak and Xerox. Or about research for industry giant General Motors. But Vince Barabba’s experience spans all of these! Better yet, he managed to accomplish it while remaining a genuinely humble man. Rather than acting like he is teaching us, he has clearly focused on what he has learned from others in business, in government, and even what he learned personally from academic thought leaders including Peter Drucker and Russ Ackoff. As a result, we all can learn from the author’s own thoughts, and from his leadership. Thanks, Vince!"
Bill Moult: President, Media & Advertising Analytics, The Nielsen Company
"In this book, systems thinking is offered as the mindset to get decision-makers to see enterprises differently and to help them address "messy" problems at the speed demanded today ...
Many real-world examples and experiences are shared as a means to demonstrate practical aspects … of the approaches discussed in the book ... all within the context of dramatically improving executive decision-making and enterprise performance."
John Pourdehnad: Associate Director, Ackoff Collaboratory, University of Pennsylvania
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