The final two steps in the decision-making model involve planning and implementing. Unfortunately, decisions will be made but not implemented, and a major cause is not developing a detailed plan to achieve the objective of the decision. After making a decision, you develop a plan of action with a schedule for implementation. The plan needs to be clearly communicated so that everyone can do his or her part to achieve the objective.

After a decision has been made and plans developed, the plans must be implemented—you need to take action to achieve your objective. In implementing a decision, it is likely to be necessary to delegate assignments to others. Control methods should be developed while planning to measure and monitor decision outcomes. Checkpoints should be established to determine whether the chosen alternative is solving the problem.

When we will not admit that we made a bad decision, we are in the process known as escalation of commitment. We tend to maintain commitment to losing courses of action, even in the face of bad news.