Decision support system in paper format

When our goals and long term vision post­ed some­where on the organisation’s intranet seems far away, a deci­sion sup­port sys­tem in paper for­mat on our desk could be what saves us. By shift­ing out­come data and the descrip­tion of where we are head­ing in the long run from the dig­i­tal to the phys­i­cal world, such info is more often vis­i­ble and does not dis­ap­pear among all open win­dows on our laptop.

The deci­sion sup­port sys­tem that I use is sim­ply a let­ter sized sheet of paper that I have fold­ed into a tube with three sides. On one side, I keep my organisation’s vision. On anoth­er, the goals I am respon­si­ble for attain­ing and to what extent I suc­ceed in that. And, on the third a check­list for those days when ​“every­thing is just too much” and I need help even get­ting started.

This paper based tool helps me keep in mind where we are head­ing in my organ­i­sa­tion and what we need to accom­plish in the short run to suc­ceed. It makes me pri­or­i­tize more delib­er­ate­ly and with greater ease (and con­fi­dence) dis­re­gard tasks that are not steps in the right direction.

Maybe it could be use­ful to you as well.

Here, you will find a sim­ple tem­plate in Excel-for­mat that you can base your adap­tion of this tool on (xlsx for­mat, 1,5 MB).

David Stiern­holm