At a recent informal meeting somebody posed an important, and very relevant, question: Is it possible to do collaborative decision making (CDM) alone? The question may sound like a contradiction in terms at first but it is not. And the answer is both yes and no.
First of all, we must remember the First and Second Rules of CDM: “Never make decisions in isolation” and “Always share your decisions”.
Making a decision alone or in isolation are two very different things of course. Not making decisions in isolation does not imply that you must make the decision while interacting with others in real time. In actual fact at a small airport or for a small aircraft operator the CDM environment may be nothing more complicated than having easy access to standard procedures being applied at his own or at remote locations, preparing a list of acceptable options to be selected from in given situations and so on. Armed with such “support” the person making the decision may be alone but still not working in isolation.
Conversely, sharing the decision with others does not necessarily mean actually telling anybody about the decision. It means that the result of the decision is available via agreed means so that those interested can have easy access to it at any time.
This all may sound like saying the obvious but contemporary attempts to implement CDM and the less than overwhelming results carry a number of important messages.
First and foremost we must remember that CDM is about changing the behavior of people and not about deploying yet another computer system. Secondly, CDM is most effective when it is addressing the simple things that still have a major negative impact on the efficient running of the ATM network.
An over-complicated, too rigid application of the CDM concept often backfires with people losing confidence in the whole idea when the benefits fail to materialize.
Remember the story of the Atlanta telephone that was one of the first CDM successes? The saying “simple is beautiful” still holds true!