Decision Latency: When Slow Choices Break Systems

Organizations treat decisions like meetings: postpone, ping, repeat. The result is decision latency—the time between a business question and a firm answer—that silently shapes architecture, scope, and cost. In this episode Mirko Peters explains why decision latency matters for both sides: business suffers missed opportunities and shifting priorities; IT builds defensively, over‑engineering for uncertainty or shipping half‑baked solutions that become technical debt. Through a mix of conceptual clarity and a generalized consulting vignette, Mirko unpacks common causes (unclear ownership, multi‑stage approvals, optimistic defaults), shows how latency warps requirements and testing, and gives practical, immediately actionable ways to shorten cycles: clarity on decision criteria, explicit escalation paths, small, reversible decisions, and time‑boxed experiments. Listeners will leave with concrete steps to reduce waiting, speed feedback, and align incentives so choices become part of delivery rather than its bottleneck.Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/business-it-it-business--6867401/support.To continue the conversation, follow Mirko Peters on LinkedIn, where more insights and real-world examples are shared from both business and IT perspectives.