A few years ago, there was a large technical decision we had to make. There were a few different options to choose from, and each had its own set of strong supporters within our team. My VP at the time told me essentially “I trust you and the team to make the right decision about which technology to use, but how do you know that the process you’ll use to arrive at that decision is effective?” This led me to do some research on how decisions are made outside of the tech industry. In my research I came across a decision-making process called the Analytic Hierarchy Process that was created in the late 1970s, it has been debated academically for years, and is still in use today. We tried it out and found that not only did it help us reach a decision, but going through the process also helped everyone buy into the decision. We have since used the process many times at Comcast, tweaking it along the way, and the feedback has always been positive.

Any software engineer at any level will be able to benefit from my talk, as I discuss how to approach decision-making, why the Analytic Hierarchy Process works, and how exactly to use it effectively. That being said, the ones that will get the most benefit will be those at a Staff+ level where they are looked at as the leaders in their organization and need to navigate how to make large decisions and more importantly, get buy-in for those decisions. It is also worth noting that although we have used this process numerous times for very large decisions, we have also been able to quickly leverage it for small ones as well, so there is something in the talk for everyone.

Be willing to give the Analytic Hierarchy Process a try the next time you have a big decision to make, especially when you want to include others in the decision-making process, or if the impact is large and you want to clearly articulate why a decision was made.