Decide announce defend (DAD)
DAD is the Decide-Announce-Defend management approach, sometimes ending up as
DADA (Decide-Announce-Defend-Abandon). It is based on the analysis of an issue by
a group of experts, whose decisions will be get made through a well-defined hierarchy,
even if not everyone agrees with them.
This approach is considered a good method for emergencies, due to its quickness, but
is not well suited to a) situations where a wide range of technical, social, cultural and
economic factors are influencing the current situation and the various possible
alternatives to it; b) where successful implementation involves a lot of people; c) where
these people are not in an obvious command structure, but can choose whether to
cooperate.
In some contexts – traffic congestion, water supply, domestic energy use, waste
reduction, renewable generation, flood risk management – the DAD approach is
guaranteed to generate resistance to even the best ideas. Resistance eats up time and
resources because it needs a response. The time spent overcoming resistance and
defending the solutions against opponents often delays implementation and can lead
to the plans being abandoned. (1)
(1) TELL ME Project: Flu from A to Z