Hypothesis. There are essentially 4 modes of organisational decision making.

1. Power Driven
2. Expert Driven
3. Customer Driven
4. Research/Data Driven

As the name suggests, Power Driven decision making means that decisions are made by the most powerful person in the room.

Pros: Decisions are fast
Cons: No evidence that decisions are optimal

Expert Decision Making involves either gathering input from experts or having the experts make the decisions themselves.

Pros: Somebody with domain experience make the decision
Cons: Still no idea if the decision is optimal

Customer Informed/Driven decision making sees involvement from customers in the form of focus groups and opinion polls, co-design and qual surveys.

Pros: Decisions are nearer the customer. Can blame the research if things go wrong
Cons: Customers don't always know what's best

Research/Data Driven Decision making sees people coming up with hypothesises and testing them in more rigorous ways.

Pros: Higher chance of a positive outcome. Less prone to HiPPOs.
Cons: Potentially time consuming. Requires significant tooling and culture change. Can be misused

Interestingly we can see these different modes used in different proportions across a range of organisations, from governments to tech companies.