This article first appeared in Ontario Sheep News.
How many decisions do you make each day? Hundreds? Thousands?
Regardless of how large or small your sheep operation is, farming is a complex system requiring many decisions. Decision making is a skill you need to practice and improve. For long term success, it is necessary to understand how you make decisions and to actively choose how farm decisions will be made. Grain and Graze Australia has done research into farm decision making to help farmers make better decisions. They believe that the only real difference between the top twenty percent of farmers and the rest is their ability to make the right decision at the right time. (Nicholson et al., 2015)
How do you make decisions?
Decisions are made using the head, heart and gut. The head is logical and uses data analysis to determine the best choice. The heart is emotional and uses beliefs and preferences to determine the best choice. The gut is intuition or feel and uses past knowledge and experience to determine the best choice. The influence of the head, heart or gut on any particular decision depends on the type of decision, what information is available, urgency, risk and personality.
What types of decisions do you make?
With so many decisions to be made, it is useful to differentiate between different types of decisions. Decisions can be categorized into 3 types of decisions, simple, complicated and complex.
A simple decision has few variables and only one right solution. For example, how much anthelmintic should be used to deworm a sheep? There is a specific dosage that should be given based on the weight of the sheep. This type of decision should be based on data and logic.
A complicated decision has many variables and generally one right solution. For example, how often should you rotate sheep through your pasture system? This decision is going to depend on how many sheep you have, the pasture, the weather etc. This decision should also be primarily based on information and logic but will be influenced by experience.
A complex decision has many variables and more than one right solution. For example, should you use an annual or accelerated production system? In this case, there is more than one right decision. Although data and logic should be used to inform this kind of decision, preferences and experience have an increased role in complex decisions.
How can you improve your decision making?
Did you know that the average person can only hold three to four things in their working memory at once? The point is not to run around the farm and try and prove that you can hold more. But acknowledging this limit and changing processes to accommodate it is a way to reduce errors and stress. As a result, the first method to improve decision making is to have answers to simple decisions always available and preferably visible. For example, how much colostrum does a chilled lamb need? This information could be posted on the wall where the colostrum will be put in a feeding bottle.
It could look like this:
Colostrum
Feed 50 ml/kg per feeding.
Feed 4 feedings in the first 24 hours, ideally first 2 feedings in the first 4-8hrs
Or it could look like this:
| Lamb Weight | Colostrum /Feeding (ml) |
| 1.5 | 75 |
| 2 | 100 |
| 2.5 | 125 |
| 3 | 150 |
| 3.5 | 175 |
| 4 | 200 |
| 4.5 | 225 |
| 5 | 250 |
| 5.5 | 275 |
| 6 | 300 |
| 6.5 | 325 |
| 7 | 350 |
| 7.5 | 375 |
As you can see, the second choice which already has the math done for each situation is faster and reduces the chance of error. Taking time to organize and ensure the answers for simple decisions are visible where you will make that decision saves time every time the task is done.
A second method to improve decision making is to actively plan how and with what information decisions will be made. Complicated and complex decisions need to be part of the farm business planning cycle. What decisions need to be made throughout the year? How have the decisions been made in the past? How much of the decision was based on head, heart and gut and was it appropriate? For example, did you decide to buy a new tractor when you got stuck in the mud in the yard, in a sleep deprived state, after four weeks of lambing, when you needed to start field work, that was behind already and bought a specific tractor because your neighbor liked it and it was available now? After that event, you likely generated some logic to explain that emotional decision. But did you really need a tractor or some gravel in the yard? Some tips to ensure emotion is not taking over a decision is to ask yourself how you will feel in 10 minutes, 10 months or 10 years and to consider what you might tell your friend in the same situation. What kind of structure can you put in place to ensure that you are making the best complex decisions?
Once you have identified important decisions for the upcoming year, what information or data is needed to make those decisions better? The cost of gathering data needs to be balanced with the accuracy of the data and reassessed as data tools become cheaper. The heart or values, beliefs and preferences need to factor into complex decisions. A decision matrix putting a value on different choices can help balance these factors with data. Intuition or the gut assists in making decisions faster. A quick check is to ask yourself if the intuition can be explained by good experiences or data.
Another form of intuition is a rule of thumb. Rules of thumb simplify and speed up decision making. It is useful to identify the rules of thumb that you use and review them. Some questions to ask when reviewing a rule of thumb are: 1) Where did it come from? 2) How well has it worked in the past? 3) Is there research that verifies it? 4) Are there areas the rule may cause me to neglect? 5) What factors would cause this rule to change? This will allow you to update your rule of thumb or confirm that it is still valid.
Conclusions
The first step to improving decision making is to realize that decision making is a skill which needs to be improved on an ongoing basis. Start thinking about which decisions are complicated and which are complex. Identify when are you using your head, heart and gut and determine if it is appropriate for the decision. Finally, free up some time by ensuring answers to simple decisions are visible and in the location the decision is being made. The information in this article has largely been taken from the Grain and Graze document Farm Decision Making. The link to the document is below and is an excellent reference for farmers who want to improve decision making.
Reference:
Nicholson, C., Long, J., England, D., Long, B., Creelman, Z., Mudge, B., Cornish, D. June 2015. Farm Decision making: The interaction of personality, farm business and risk to make more informed decisions. Grains Research and Development Corporation. ISBN: 978-1-921779-88-6 http://www.grainandgraze3.com.au/resources/Farm_Decision_Making.pdf