How sparrowcall® works

SPARROWCALL is a decision-making methodology developed by IPAS Australia. It is designed to address different types of decisions and the environments in which they occur, particularly focusing on complex problems where time constraints are significant. The methodology distills a structured approach to decision-making, aiming to improve problem-solving efficiency and prevent repeated mistakes by facilitating learning from past experiences​.

SPARROWCALL is useful for various settings, including businesses, teams, and individuals. It can also be tailored for specific demographics, such as young people or female decision-makers. For high-pressure situations where information is limited and quick decisions are necessary, an abbreviated format called SPROCET is available​ and which is usually used by experienced operators in what would be their normal high-risk and dynamic work environment.

It takes the form of an 11-step process as described below.

Stablise for safety - many problems are made worse by rushing to react, or by not ensuring the environment is stable before taking action. The action could be a physical action or it could be making a decision. In any case, it is imperative to make sure the situation has been made as stable as possible before moving on. Remember! The environment could be the physical environment or the psychological environment.

Problem and symptoms defined and the desired end state, means to analyse exactly what the problem is that needs to be solved and what the symptoms are of that problem and what success looks like. In many cases, the symptoms may need to be addressed first, before commencing any action to solve the problem to reach a desired end state. For example, if your child has a high fever, then the problem may be an infection, but the symptom—the high fever—must be addressed first before worrying about the infection as you progress towards reaching the desired end state: a healthy child free of any debilitating effects of the infection. By defining the problem and the symptoms and the desired end state, focussed action can commence in the correct order of importance and urgency.

Assessing the environment means looking at both the physical and psychological environments, or in the event of a medical problem, the physiological environment. If the problem is one of an interpersonal nature, let's say friction in the workplace, then the environment is predominantly a psychological one. After all, the physical environment probably has little to do with the interpersonal friction.

By assessing the environment and seeing how it may affect the problem or even solve the problem, decision-making can be made easier. For example, if the situation is one of inappropriate workplace behaviour, then the organisation may already have processes in place to deal with it, such as Codes of Conduct and mediators and HR departments. If so, the problem may already have a solution. Another example is wildfire (bushfire) fighting. By assessing the terrain, vegetation, humans and infrastructure and weather, the team fighting the fire can make decisions about how to fight the fire within context.

Risks - now and future, means to conduct a risk assessment for immediate action and for any proposed action. The risk assessment might be a quick mental assessment based on one's own knowledge and wisdom, or it could be a discussion with others, or it could be a formal risk management process in accordance with organisational procedures. In actual fact, the term 'risk' merely means 'the chance of something happening', but in common usage it has a negative connotation, so we'll use it in that way. Later on, another risk assessment is necessary when developing a course of action... but for now we're looking at the 'big picture' and 'obvious' problems that may impact how we proceed in the problem-solving process.

Resources are anything that can help solve the problem and make the decision. As the problem becomes clearer and the risks more apparent, it is now time to see what resources are available. The two most important resources to acquire are time and cognitive processing (ie brainpower). There are two ways to get these and they are interlinked, but if a problem-solver can acquire these resources, the problem become significantly easier to solve!

Options are things that can be chosen from a set of possibilities, in this case, courses of action. Options provide flexibility and a person with no option is forced down a particular pathway. When creating courses of action to solve a problem, the problem-solver should have at least two viable options: a preferred course of action and an alternative course of action. It is better to have three, with one of the courses of action being what you will do if the worst case scenario arises. Once courses of action are created, a more thorough examination of them is in order. That comes next. 

Weaknesses and strengths of a course of action, when examined, can help fine tune them or clarify what success and failure of that course of action looks like. Many may be familiar with the SWOT analysis: Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats. By doing a SWOT analysis of a course of action we are looking internally at strengths and weaknesses of the plan and the people who are going to execute it, and then we are looking externally at the environment and the opportunities we can take advantage of or the threats that may cause our course of action to fail. By looking at these last two items we can determine what event has to happen in order to move from one course of action to another course of action. This event is called the 'trigger' and is the second 'T' in the SWOT-T acronym. We may use a conditional statement such as 'if... then...else...' to articulate this part of the plan.

Confer, Choose, Communicate means to confer with stakeholders so that decisions are not made in isolation. Even the least experienced or newest member of the team may have better insight or more up-to-date knowledge that may have an impact on the course of action. In any case, the team leader should be conferring with stakeholders within the team and outside the team prior to making the decision. 

But when it comes time to choose a course of action, then the team leader should not shirk from the responsibility of making that decision and should stand by it and not abrogate his/her responsibility.

Then, when the team leader has made his/her choice for a course of action, then that must be communicated to all stakeholders within the team and those outside the team that need to know in a timely manner.

Activate the plan and evaluate the inputs of those that are executing it. Is the course of action going the way you intended? Do some minor changes need to be made? How much are  people value adding to the plan (that's the evaluation part) and do they need assistance? A team leader should not get 'too down in the weeds' and lose sight of the big picture. Let the team members do their job and only assist where necessary.

Look and listen for triggers means to monitor the course of action closely and if any of the trigger events occur that requires a change of the course of action or the use of a branch plan or a sequel, then that decision must be made at the appropriate time and without equivocation.

We put the word 'listen' for triggers because in some circumstances we may only be able to communicate with team members via voice and when that occurs, the team members may communicate more in 'how' words are said that in the actual words themselves. A team leader needs to be able to understand when a person's words are hiding a concern or fear or stress, upon which the team leader needs to assess the plan more closely and be prepared to act.

Take the course of action to the end state. Hopefully, it will be the desired end state, but many plans don't achieve that goal. That's life... and we must learn from that, which leads us to the final point.

Learn and teach is, along with Stabilise for safety, two critical parts of the SPARROWCALL decision-making methodology. Organisations often make the same mistakes over and over again because people fail to learn lessons from previous events. Wisdom comes from applied knowledge derived from experience. When organisations fail, it is usually because of a lack of wisdom which comes from corporate memory and experience, either first hand (eg personal experience) or third hand (eg written records).

Regardless of the outcome of the problem that needed solving, the organisation will benefit if it learns the lessons. That can only occur if the key players commit to paper (or to 'ones and zeros') the lessons learnt and then propagates those lessons within the organisation.