Deciding quickly: what time saved does not guarantee
In Basel-based organisations, coordination across pharmaceuticals, life sciences, Rhine logistics and international R&D often involves tight deadlines. The useful question is specific: how can managers tell whether faster decisions reflect a better process rather than greater acceptance of the risk of error?
What the literature establishes
Richard P. Heitz (2014, Frontiers in Neuroscience) reviews research on the speed–accuracy tradeoff: in many experimental tasks, prioritising speed changes the frequency of errors. Response time alone is therefore not a measure of performance. Any acceleration needs to be assessed alongside response accuracy, under comparable conditions.
The threshold before the response
Roger Ratcliff and Gail McKoon (2008, Neural Computation) present a model in which a choice between two responses results from evidence accumulating to a threshold. Within this framework, responding faster can reflect a less demanding threshold rather than better information extraction. The model also distinguishes decision time from components such as stimulus encoding and response execution.
The premature conclusion
One might conclude that simply slowing down improves decisions. These studies do not support that general rule: training, more legible information or an easier task can increase speed without reducing accuracy. The management question therefore concerns the source of the time savings, not speed in isolation. (our executive and employee training programmes)
What the evidence does not allow us to transfer
The models discussed are primarily tested on repeated, relatively simple tasks for which correct responses can be defined. An R&D portfolio decision or an international logistics tradeoff involves delayed consequences and sometimes conflicting objectives. We cannot directly assign such decisions a measurable psychological threshold, or assume that every additional hour improves their quality.
A practical check in Bâle
Within SHR's decision-making programme, an exercise suitable for a Basel-based interface between pharmaceuticals, life sciences, Rhine logistics and international R&D is to track a recurring category of coordination decisions that are not safety-critical. Before and after a procedural change, record the median time from a complete file to a decision and the proportion of decisions corrected for a documented error within an identical follow-up window, keeping eligibility and error criteria unchanged. A shorter turnaround accompanied by more corrections is not sufficient evidence of improvement; this monitoring provides a verifiable signal, not causal proof or grounds for relaxing regulatory controls. To go further: explore the Decision-making training in Basel, or browse our executive and employee training programmes in Switzerland.
In pictures: Decision-making in Basel
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