So, like I wrote about yesterday, decisions are fractal - big decisions are often composed of a lot of smaller decisions.

But there’s another kind of big decision that we need to think about: decisions are big when they have a big impact, not just when they take a lot of resources or involve a lot of smaller decisions.

That leads us to the princple of 80/20 influence. In the world, we see a lot of instances of Pareto’s 80/20 rule - 80% of the results come from 20% of the effort. That’s true in the world of influence, too. A relatively small number of decisions can make a huge difference in the overall outcomes of a project.

It’s easy to get a gut-level check of the 80/20 principle for influence. The challenge is picking the right 20% of decisions to focus on in advance, instead of in hindsight. But hindsight is a good place to start, along with a few other flags that can help us narrow in on the best places to make a difference.

• History - what kinds of decisions have really impacted your organization in the past? Are there similar decisions happening now? Use hindsight to guide your influence attention.
• Seniority - how far up the chain does the decision go? Are people with great track records involved?
• Frequency - how often is this decision made? Typically, decisions made farther apart are going to have more overall impact. An annual budget decision has more impact than decision about funding a one-off pilot.
• Accessibility - how much can you personally influence the conversation? Maybe getting that one-off pilot funding will set the stage for a regular budget commitment next year.
• Status Quo - how well does the decision fit in with how things have always been done? The more something matches the status quo, the less chance it has to change it, but the less it matches, the less likely it will get support. Finding a balance that expands the status quo instead of ignoring it helps in most risk-averse organizations.
• Framing - defining the problem has a huge impact on everything that follows. 
• Process principles - agreeing on principles like human-centered design, rapid prototyping, agile, or other high-level approaches will make a big difference.
• Process details - but getting caught up in wireframes, or an Illustrator vs. Visio argument won’t make as much of a difference.

There’s more, but that’s a good start to finding the decisions that matter most. Let me know if you have other flags that help you figure out which choices are bigger than others. You can leave a comment here, or send a shout on Twitter.