The concept of time management and decision making cannot be over-emphasized. They work interwovenly. It is a universal phenomenon and the entire mechanism of its operation assumes a universal complex. However, its practice and execution in all levels of management varies from one individual to the other as well as from one organization to another.As with everything else today, the notion of time management and decision-making is in a stage of transition. That is why their concept is very relevant in the execution of our duties. But, increasingly, we fail to learn, however, how to make short term tactical decisions without hindering long term strategic considerations taking time constrains into due consideration.
The easiest way to manage time intelligently is to make a little plan for your work. The plan should cover the things you personally do to help the organization achieve results. As a beginning, make a list of your job schedule, ie, correspondence, meetings, reading for information and comment,tours of work areas within your jurisdiction, individual discussions held with employees, and so on. How much time do these things take
More importantly, how much time do they leave for important contributions to the current work of the organization. So, decided about the ratio of time that is right for you in the current situation and enlist the help of a secretary to help you clear the time you need for thinking and analysis, for important contacts and customers, for improving the capability of the organization to get results.
Allocation Of Time
At all level of management, certain basic rules apply, as to how we may ultimately allocate our time. Infact, the first rule is; always take top few jobs that will benefit everybody most and get them done. Your staff must come first in this regard because you need them to make sure your department is doing the job it was created to do. This may be services, research, production, project management, etc. To perform any of these functions demands that members of your staff are properly paid, housed, secured, trained and treated. Then your customers and the rest follow suit.
The second rule is you have to plan your work and make tight but achievable targets for yourself. Don’t let your jobs run on. Break up your day into intervals of time that you can fit and measure against individual jobs. Today I will do this! If you do this planning everyday or a period ahead, you will acquire capacity for doing more, and more work timely.
The third rule says that unless there are good sound reasons to delay a job, do it now! Don’t put off until tomorrow what you can do today. Also, make sure you finish one job before starting another. Don’t work on several jobs at once as none will get done properly.
The fourth and final rule states that it is imperative to include in your plan of work time to think about your next plan of work and time to think about activities to benefit the organization and its staff.
Steps And Techniques In Decision Making
This follows a logical pattern whether the decision at the end looks logical to those who have to implement it or are affected by it. The stages to the decision have been these
Stage 1. Understanding the problem; firstly, a problem or a question must be posed and facts marshalling in relation to the problem should be thoroughly done.
Stage 2. Make sure you have the right question; secondly, after you have revealed the question, consult your feelings and ask yourself whether the question is the one that ought to be asked.
Stage 3. Assessing whether it is your responsibility to make the decision, by this stage, not only should the real question be revealed but also, the appropriate level for decision. One will know whether one can make one’s own decision and get on with it or whether to pass the problem up the line to senior management.
Stage 4. Checking whether the question is feasible; after a decisional problem has been identified, alternative strategies for the solution of the problem may be developed. This aspect generally involves both the question of ends and means. Also at this fourth stage, the question one should ask is whether the problem comes within the scope of the organization.
Stage 5. Looking at the timing needed ; this is one of the principal actions to be taken into consideration when a decisive action is made. This dictates how long before it is made. It may be too early or late for an action.
Stage 6. Asssessing the risks; in every decisive action there is an element of risk involved. All actions involve some judgement and the future is yet an uncharted mystery. Judgement and future equals risk that is why the purpose of managerial reaction is the conscious direction of human behaviour towards some future end.
Conclusion
By now, it must be obvious that decisive action is much more than simply making a choice in the hope of solving a problem or attaining an objective. In its unstructured form, decisive action is fairly complex, and it is only through the development and use of conceptual frameworks such as those presented in this article that the complexity could be reduced to manageable proportions.
Tags: concept of time, levels of management, project man, tactical decisions, universal phenomenon