Making a decision

Making a decision

Listen to a meeting in which colleagues make a decision to practise and improve your listening skills.

Do the preparation task first. Then listen to the audio and do the exercises.

Preparation

Transcript

Jani: Thanks for coming, everyone. So, we're here today to define the timeline for our new project.

Emiko: Yes, Jani, that's a great idea.

Carolina: OK. What do you need from us?

Emiko: Hold on a moment. I think we need to decide between us what to do, to make sure it works for all departments.

Jani: Yes, exactly, don't worry. We're going to discuss this and make a decision together. Let's first think about the scheduling of each project phase. What do you think, Emiko?

David: Can I interrupt? I think we should first be clear about the process we'll use to make the decision. How are we going to do it?

Jani: Ah, yes. Good point. Well, I think the best way is for each of you to give your opinion and then we can discuss and make a decision.

David: OK. That sounds good.

Emiko: Yes, that works for me too. I know we're still planning the structure of the later phases of the project, but I think we should begin phase one as soon as possible. We can work out the rest later, as we go along.

David: I'm sorry, I don't think so. How can we start phase one if we're not fully clear on where the rest of the project will take us? We might make a wrong decision and waste time.

Jani: I agree with you on that point, David. However, we'll waste too much time if we wait until everything is planned before we actually start working on the project. I think we should take an agile approach.

David: Agile approach?

Jani: Well, it means that we start quickly and then adapt as we go along.

Emiko: That's right.

Jani: Carolina, you've been very quiet.

Carolina: Um … I'm sorry. I didn't want to interrupt. I'm listening … and thinking.

David: Do you agree we should get the plan right first, and then start with phase one?

Carolina: I'm sorry, David. I don't think I agree with you. It's important to have a good plan. But plans can change, even the good ones – and business changes often. We need to be flexible, and we also need to move quickly.

Jani: OK. So should we take a vote?

Emiko: Well, you're the project leader. Let's go with your decision.

Carolina: Yes, I'll follow your lead, Jani.

David: Well, I guess that's decided then. We'll follow your agile approach, Jani. Start quickly and keep planning the later stages of the project.

Jani: Yes, that's right.

David: I still don't think this is the right decision, but I'm happy to go with the majority. We should add some space into the schedule later for additional work this 'flexibility' will need.

Jani: Don't worry, David, we will. OK, so it's decided then. We'll start phase one as soon as possible, and in the background we'll continue planning the later phases and adapt them as we go along.

Discussion

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Average: 3.9 (95 votes)

Submitted by Eman Samir on Sat, 03/12/2022 - 13:31

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It depends. Sometimes, It's made between us to make sure that works for all, other times a vote is taken then the decision is made according to the majority's opinions.

Submitted by Hamideh Soroush on Thu, 06/10/2022 - 01:30

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in the company where I work, there is a rigid hierarchy. For making any decision one internal meeting will be set in departments. However, for crucial and snap decisions the opinions of the shareholder, managers, and heads of departments are more preferred.

Submitted by mamalirezaenglish on Sat, 13/08/2022 - 20:29

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Our company director doesn't interfere too much in each team's decision making. He just makes a whole strategy for the organization and each team's responsibility is to make a decision aligned with whole company strategy.

Submitted by AlexandraMT on Wed, 03/08/2022 - 01:00

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decision making is based on votes.

Submitted by Ehsan on Tue, 07/06/2022 - 08:26

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In our company about some work we make a discussion but often our bosses make a decision and we do that.

Submitted by younes01 on Thu, 28/04/2022 - 03:44

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Well, I am still studying now, but I'll talk about how we usually make decisions in school; especially when we are working on a school project like making a presentation about a specific subject.
we start this with how will be the structure of the presentation and we take everyone's thoughts about how he wants it to be and what are we going to start with, what will be in the end, and so on?
After that, we give each one his turn in the presentation based on each one's desire or by voting or making a lottery.
It is so fun and exciting to do a project with your classmates and it is fun to be in the middle of the atmosphere of making decisions

Submitted by Miguelitorico1996 on Fri, 14/01/2022 - 19:42

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Decisions are made for people who are in the highest positions of the company, I'm not part of the decision making because I work in an operational process.

Submitted by jmajo on Mon, 10/01/2022 - 19:07

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Well, usually we have scheduled weekly team meetings to make the most important decisions between the majority of us in the team, generally we make a list of the main topics of the week and then we discuss the subjects making a decision together for each of them at the end of the meeting, if we need to we suggest a timeline with different phases and define who will do what on each of them to get the things done on time. Most of the times we try not to use structured approaches because our line of work demands agile behaviors to adapt solutions to solve unexpected issues and problems that may occur along the timeline, and if we need to take additional time to solve it, we'll take it.

Thanks for the lesson.
Great site!

Usually, our leader make a meeting and we discuss the issue and then the leader follow the decision of the majority

Submitted by misty on Sun, 09/01/2022 - 03:49

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In my workplace the decision is usually team based. Everyone of us are asked about our opinions and we discuss about the advantages and disadvantages. The final output will be based on which has a better outcome.