The Art of Project Management

8.4. The courage to decide

"All know the way; few actually walk it."

—Bodhidharma

There is a big difference between knowing the right choice and making the right choice. Much of the time, any number of people can figure out what the right decision is, but very few will be willing to stand up and put themselves and their reputations behind it. You will always find more people willing to criticize and ridicule you for your decisions, than people willing to take on the responsibility and pressure to make the decision themselves. Always keep this in mind. Decision making is a courageous act. The best decisions for projects are often unpopular, will upset or disappoint some important people on the team, and will make you an easy target for blame if things go wrong.

These burdens are common for anyone trying to engage in leadership activity. Decision making is one of the most central things leaders and managers do, and the better the leader, the more courage that's required in the kinds of decisions that she makes (see the section "Trust in yourself (self-reliance)" in Chapter 12).

8.4.1. Some decisions have no winning choices

One of the ugliest decisions I've ever made as a project manager involved the explorer bar component of Internet Explorer 4.0. The explorer bar was a new part of the user interface that added a vertical strip to the left part of the browser to aid users in navigating through search results, their favorites list, and a history of sites they'd visited. With a ...