The formula for making good team decisions

In business or government, the best way to make decisions is as a group. Based on this premise, they designed Ranktab, a tool that utilizes collective intelligence to incorporate all viewpoints and allows them to be seen together through graphs.

Reaching an agreement in a meeting can take hours or even multiple sessions. In many cases, decisions end up being made in a "tyrannical" manner by the most extroverted, charismatic, or highest-ranking individuals in the boardroom. But is this always a correct way to make decisions, or at least for the majority of decisions?

Inspired by James Surowiecki's book "The Wisdom of Crowds," which demonstrates that a large group of people are better at making decisions than an elite few, under the right conditions, Francisco Ruiz designed an application that supports users in making group decisions, naming it Ranktab. "When you have a small group making decisions, it might be easier to overlook errors or have limited diversity of opinions. Ranktab aids in making decisions collectively using collective intelligence, considering all viewpoints and allowing results to be viewed collectively through graphs. People in groups prefer to avoid confrontations. Generally, decisions made depend on the perspectives of leaders or the most extroverted individuals, but that doesn't necessarily mean it's the right approach. The most creative, technologically innovative, or field-interacting individuals with lower ranks tend not to be as good at communication, but their opinion is extremely valuable. With tools like Ranktab, all opinions can be added to decisions, achieving greater inclusion and democracy in decision-making," comments Francisco, a Mexican who has been programming since the age of 8 and is a success story in Silicon Valley.

The company has been in an acceleration process with Plug and Play (an accelerator that has launched companies like Dropbox and Lending Club), where they developed their algorithm to aid in making collective decisions. They have over 4,000 clients, including Tec de Monterrey, entrepreneurship competitions, startup weekends, human resources recruitment, and companies like Cisco, GE, Deutsche Bank, the government of Santa Clara, and Televisa with Posible. They have managed to evaluate over 1.3 million decisions in 8 months with their advanced mathematical statistics algorithm and a $500,000 investment round, including groups like Sip Innovation.

Undoubtedly, this tool has a huge opportunity area in government to improve efficiency, speed, and transparency in decision-making. Currently, in this sector, they have conducted pilot programs with the Innovation Secretariat of the Jalisco government and with the Zapopan Challenge. "Making group decisions is something that happens every day at all hours, and making them correctly is a great advantage in business, innovation, and government," recommends Francisco. According to the OECD, Mexico is the country in the group with the most hours worked but the least productivity. Undoubtedly, making good team decisions is something that can really help improve the productivity of our businesses and government, productivity that, until now, has been shown to be the best way to grow a country.