First Good Cafe - A Playful Framework For Making Decisions

Akseli Virtanen, Emma Laiho at UXDX Community: Helsinki. Video: https://youtu.be/LgknhX-JKeI

Readable transcript: edited from the recording's captions for readability (fillers and false starts removed, punctuation and section headings added). Wording is the speaker's own. Timestamps are positions in the video. Names marked [?] could not be verified against the audio.

Introductions and a coffee story

[00:00:03] Emma: Hi, welcome to a presentation titled First Good Cafe, which is a playful framework for making decisions, and it's a framework invented by us. But first, some introductions. I'm Emma. I work as a design director at Frantic, which is a consultancy, and I lead our design community of 30 designers. I work on our design offering, which means what we sell to our clients, and I also do a lot of other sales work, like crafting offers.

[00:00:44] Akseli: And since yesterday I'm a senior consultant at Frantic, and I also do a lot of sales, particularly in relation to technology, and also plenty of business development. So hi. But let's not go into work just yet. First we want to tell you a story.

[00:01:07] Emma: The story goes like this. Once upon a coffee, you and your friends are in a foreign city together. You decide to go for a cup of coffee. All you have to do is find a place. Simple, right? I guess this is a pretty common scenario for all of us, and it can be very painful.

[00:01:36] What are the common coffee problems when choosing a cafe with your friends or family when traveling? It might start out something like this. You definitely want a coffee, but on second thought your friend would like a bagel, and the third person would actually want some freshly squeezed orange juice. Also, commonly, five minutes ago you and your group decided to simply walk into the first place that you see. But arriving at the first place, you realize quickly that you definitely meant some other first place. This can take a lot of time, and people want coffee.

Sales decisions at Frantic

[00:02:13] Akseli: Leaving that story behind for just a moment: meanwhile, at our work at Frantic, we do a lot of sales as a consultancy. We have to sell everything that we do. All the work we do has to be sold to someone. The expertise is within our people, and that's our product, which is tricky. Sales for us doesn't just mean putting some prices on and shipping products, like it might for some other people. For us it means really being able to communicate about our people, our approach, and the story of how the solution or the project that we're selling is going to succeed.

[00:03:12] Emma: What makes this triple tricky is that we have no dedicated sales department. All of us do sales, so all of our proposals are written by us and our colleagues. This is why a design director and senior consultants are writing offers and sales presentations all day. Typically the team at our place writes the proposal as well.

[00:03:49] Akseli: Selling projects means that you have to make a lot of decisions. Decisions such as team: who's going to do it, who are the first people to even make the thing? Approach: what is the most important thing about the project or the assignment that we are tackling? And then of course technology. In the technology business there's endless discussion about best stacks, and also different organizations choosing different platforms and so on.

[00:04:37] Emma: And then crucially there is scope. What does it mean to make a project, what's inside the project and what's outside the project? Clients want to know how long it will take, and what they also want to know, and this usually applies even to any kind of internal scenario [?], is how much things cost.

[00:05:02] Akseli: I think even if you're not working at a consultancy, and maybe you don't consider your work sales as such, you can still recognize that these are the kinds of decisions that you often end up having to make when doing anything.

Why even simple decisions are hard

[00:05:20] Emma: Let's return to searching for some coffee. Even simple things, like deciding where to sit down for a coffee, are really complicated. This is because a lot of primary requirements are unmentioned. People typically don't want to tell you that actually they want a bagel. Everyone is really vague: yeah, coffee.

[00:05:53] Akseli: And if I say that I want to go for a coffee, and if you say you want to go for a coffee, it could mean very different things for us both, unless we go a bit deeper into the requirements.

[00:06:06] Emma: You definitely want some oat milk in your coffee, but how would everyone know?

[00:06:11] Akseli: And the second thing that I think everyone is really familiar with is the way the decision-making process goes. I think everyone has heard, not only when searching for coffee but in different settings, the phrase "I am fine with absolutely anything," until we suggest something, and then no one is fine with anything anymore.

[00:06:34] Emma: You won't even know that, because they won't tell you they are not fine. They just feel unsatisfied.

Three common strategies: delay, more detail, more options

[00:06:44] Akseli: Exactly. Because we have some experience in doing sales and doing projects, and also looking for places to drink coffee, we've identified three common strategies that often emerge in decision-making processes. The first strategy is delay: let's not make decisions, let's make them later or not at all. Secondly, more detail: let's get more details to make the decision.

[00:07:17] Emma: And finally, third, more options: let's add more options. We'll only make a decision if we have enough options, even to look at different stacks.

[00:07:33] Akseli: Now we're going to go one by one, in more detail, into the different strategies.

[00:07:39] Emma: What does it look like when you're trying to get coffee? Delaying sounds like: okay, let's keep on walking, there must be another much nicer place around the corner. This is fine, but there's something else.

[00:07:58] Akseli: Strategically, what we're doing is saying let's not make any decisions now, and let's hope that somehow by waiting we will arrive at some better juncture to make the decision. I think this is also familiar to a lot of people; it tends to happen a lot.

[00:08:20] Emma: The second strategy, more detail: look at the menu. I'm not sure this is okay. I'd like to look at the bagels. Is there any toast?

[00:08:37] Akseli: Instead of making decisions, let's really dive into the details of the menu and get to know how the egg sandwich is made, and all of that sort of stuff. Really get a granular understanding, so that we can still not make any decisions.

[00:09:00] Emma: And finally, more options: check what's around. This might actually be satisfying, but let's cross-check some TripAdvisor scores. What are people liking? What's the best option? This usually happens when everyone has first said that they're absolutely fine with anything and we'll go to the first place, and when we arrive at the first place we're like, okay, let's Google it and have 50 places to choose from. And how do you actually know it's still around?

[00:09:46] Akseli: The strategic approach is basically summarized by saying that we will create more options, since we're clearly so good at choosing things in the first place.

How the strategies show up at work

[00:10:02] Emma: Then we wanted to illustrate how these coffee-searching strategies emerge in the workplace. What is delaying? Delaying looks like: you ask me to make a decision, I'll think about it. I'll go think about it for a couple of days, and then hopefully you'll go away and we'll never have to discuss this matter again.

[00:10:31] Akseli: Or then we can have a follow-up meeting about that decision, and perpetuate this process further and further.

[00:10:39] Emma: "What would be the best team for it?" "Well, I'll have to think about it over the week. Let's book another meeting."

[00:10:51] Akseli: Exactly. Then more detail could take a lot of forms. This is usually getting more expert advice from some people who are external to the original decision. You might pull out some matrix charts and make more detailed comparisons and tables about things, to get a better understanding of the details.

[00:11:18] Emma: Or adding more people into this category: we want to discuss this with our HR manager, or someone else.

[00:11:33] Akseli: And finally, more options at the workplace is usually deferring the decision-making by, for example, generating more ideas. We're not happy with the first options we have, and then we feel like we must generate more options to be able to make decisions.

[00:11:54] Emma: This is very common in any internal development work. Let's ask everyone what they think: what kind of coffee options should we add to our coffee machine?

[00:12:05] Akseli: We don't want to say at all that brainstorming or polls or any kind of flat hierarchy is a bad thing, but it doesn't necessarily lead to making decisions in a fast way.

[00:12:24] Emma: Or you still have to make the decisions even after the brainstorm.

[00:12:28] Akseli: The problem that the three common strategies we've identified share is that they all do something, but none of them really takes us forward. We can, for example, make decisions later, we can add more detail, we can add more choices, but do any of these things actually get us forward in the process?

[00:13:00] Emma: We can add more decisions, add more people, delay, push things around in this area.

Two essential decisions: scope and who decides

[00:13:08] Akseli: So how do we get forward? How do we get to the coffee? By looking at a lot of our work, and also sometimes successfully ending up having some coffee somewhere with friends, we've determined that there are two essential decisions that you have to make to get a bit forward. First, you have to decide together what the scope is. What are we really deciding about?

[00:13:46] Emma: Coffee, bagels, or is it just getting indoors somewhere where it's warm?

[00:13:53] Akseli: The scope must be explicit, and all the requirements should be stated out. Otherwise it's really hard to make any kind of decision. The second one is a meta decision about who decides: who will make the decision. Because even if we are a group, or even if we're just two people, ultimately someone usually has to decide something so that we get forward. This is where a lot of times being really polite and friendly paralyzes us from making decisions, because everyone is fine with everything and no one wants to step on anyone's feet.

[00:14:37] Emma: One crucial decision is what the team is going to be, and then it's usually clear who needs to make that decision. That can also take a little while.

[00:14:51] Akseli: We can almost always get forward when we have an explicit scope and owner for what we're trying to do. That seems to be the case in a lot of our follow-up work.

Why this is so hard

[00:15:05] Emma: Then finally, some reasons: why is this so hard? It sounds so simple; there are two decisions you have to make. Well, as we said, everyone is too polite. Everyone is fine with anything.

[00:15:19] Akseli: And no one wants to really step on anyone's feet.

[00:15:26] Emma: Then there's fear of failure. If I make a decision, what if it's a bad one? It's a bit like sticking your neck out. Something bad might happen.

[00:15:39] Akseli: And also, finally, perfect is usually the enemy of good enough. This is the idea that instead of trying to get forward, we might often get stuck on trying to get the best possible solution or decision out, which is not usually required when we just want to get forward. There is always going to be a better cafe, and you will never even know what the best cafe would be. You cannot really see around the corner.

[00:16:15] Emma: And that's not usually what we start with. When we say that we want to go for a coffee in a foreign city, it's not that we want to find the best cafe. We just want to go somewhere and have coffee.

Things that help

[00:16:27] Akseli: Finally, some things that we've tried, sometimes successfully and sometimes less so, but usually more so, in our own work. Simply volunteer to make a decision.

[00:16:42] Emma: "I'll just make it." Don't ask anyone, just say it.

[00:16:48] Akseli: This can sound a bit like dictating things, or taking control of things, but usually people are actually very happy when someone starts making decisions, and then the discussion gets forward from there. We've also jumped in to focus on getting one step forward.

[00:17:07] Emma: Just make one decision and see if it takes you to the next one.

[00:17:13] Akseli: And finally, it's really important to cultivate psychological safety in any kind of environment and team, and understand that we'll make lots of wrong decisions all the time. Really, the outcome of the decision is not that important, because there'll be plenty of wrong decisions. It's more important to make them than to fear making decisions.

[00:17:41] Emma: And we can make more decisions later.

[00:17:47] Akseli: And it really should be playful. In a team, or with friends out looking for coffee, try not to get so serious. Try to stay in a playful mood about making decisions.

[00:18:04] Emma: Don't take it so seriously. Thank you.

[00:18:13] Akseli: Thanks, that was us with First Good Cafe. I guess we'll see you in the Q&A room later.

[00:18:20] Emma: Please have a very pleasant conference from now on, and we'll also be watching all the talks.