The document discusses decision making models and approaches. It covers: 1. The definition of decision making as the process of selecting between alternatives. Decision making can involve different methods. 2. Types of decisions including personal vs organizational, basic vs routine, and programmed vs non-programmed. 3. Decision making approaches used at different levels including intuition, rational analysis, strategic planning, think tanks, devil's advocate, and focus groups.

1. +
The Decision
Making and
Problem Solving
Models
Dynamics and Techniques of
Decision Making

2. +
Which Mobile Phone Should I buy?
What are the things
you consider before
making a decision?

3. +
What should I wear for class or work
today?
What are the things
you consider before
making a decision?

4. +
Decision Making
2. Types and Styles of
Decision Making
1. What is decision
making?
Why decision
DECISION
MAKING
3. Roles of actors,
stakeholders and the 4. Decision Making
publics: participants’ Approaches
beneficiaries and
victims of Decision
Making

5. +
What is Decision Making?

6. +
Decision making - The mental processes
(cognitive processes) resulting in the selection of a
course of action or an opinion among several
alternatives.
 Can involve a number of methods; Involves a large body
of research, books, and ideas etc.
Why make a decision?
 Decisions in response to opportunities: respond to
ways to improve performance.
 Decisions in response to threats: occurs when people
are impacted by adverse events to the organization.

7. +
Types of Decisions
 Personal and Organizational Decisions
 Personal decisions cannot ordinarily be delegated to others
 Organizational decisions can often if not always be delegated
 Basic and Routine Decisions
 Basic decision - unique, one-time decisions involving long-range
commitments of relative permanence or duration
 Routine decisions - everyday, highly repetitive, management
decisions which by themselves have little impact on the overall
organization
 Programmed and Non-programmed Decisions
 Programmed decision they can be written down into a series of
fixed steps which anyone can follow.
 Made by managers using available information and their own
judgment

8. +
Decision making styles :
Go to what works?
A long list
One classification includes the following:
analytical
conceptual
impulsive
procrastinating
flexible
proactive
fatalistic
dependant
normative
behavioral

9. +  Irreversible: These decisions are
permanent.
Different Kinds of
Decision  Reversible: Reversible decisions are not
final and binding.
 Delayed: Such decisions are put on hold
until the decision maker thinks that the
right time has come.
 Quick Decisions: These decisions
enable one to make maximum of the
opportunity available at hand.
 Experimental: One of the different types
of decision making is the experimental
type in which the final decision cannot be
taken until the preliminary results appear
and are positive.

10. +  Trial and Error: This approach involves
Different Kinds of trying out a certain course of action.
Decision  Conditional: Conditional decisions allow
an individual to keep all his options open.

11. +
Functions of Management
Planning
Choose Goals
Controlling Organizing
Monitor & measure Working together
Leading
Coordinate

12. +
Decision Making
Roles of actors, stakeholders and the publics: participants benef iciries and victims of Decision
Making
I ndicat or Roles of Act or s
Public St akeholder s
Planning Par t icipant s as best j udges Par t icipant s as a valuables
t o evaluat e t he dif f er ent sour ce f or elicit ing concer ns
opt ions (pot ent ial vict ims
and benef act or s)
I mplement ing Par t icipant s as implement or
Cont r olling Checks & Pr ovide Feedback

13. +  Decision-makers are
Roles of each responsible for deciding what
objectives should be
in Decision emphasized where tradeoffs
Making among values are needed.
 Analysts are professionals,
scientists, or other specialists
who analyze the effect of
each alternative management
action on each objective. The
analyst's role is advisory and
is best performed if the
analyst does not exhibit a
preference for certain
objectives or alternatives.

14. +
Stakeholder involvement is
the early and extensive
engagement of stakeholders in
the process of planning, decision
making, and implementation.
Stakeholders are those effecting
change in the community and
those affected by it. Stakeholder
collaboration uses a stakeholder
group with sufficient authority to
apply collaborative learning and
conflict resolution techniques to
formulate effective and
acceptable decisions.

15. + Stakeholder involvement has three
objectives:
 Avoid Conflict: collaborative efforts aim to
engage stakeholders in a process of
resolving conflicts among them through
negotiation, mediation, and collaborative
learning.
 Develop a "Shared Vision": collaborative
efforts intend for the stakeholders to
come up with a vision or direction that
they can agree to and buy into.
 Formulate Creative Solutions: all
collaborative efforts hope to use dialogue
and group processes to develop creative
solutions that may not have emerged
from traditional planning exercises.

16. + Public participation is
dependent on both the willingness of the
public to be involved and to allow
appropriate opportunities.
 the aim is to enable greater involvement
of ‘real’ citizens in decision making at a
local level, rather than involvement of
community groups or the ‘usual suspects
What are the implications?
 Raised expectations of greater
participation and citizen engagement.
 Difficulties in widening the demand for
participation beyond than those often
referred to as the ‘usual suspects’.
 Removing of barriers to participation
 Initiatives may face problems if they fail
to understand ultimately what makes
people tick – why, when and how they
want to participate.

17. +
Clear decision roles yield five benefits
• More effective decisions by:
–Assigning a single decision-maker with both
authority
and accountability for a decision
• More efficient decisions by:
–Removing unnecessary participants from the
process and pushing decisions down in the
organization
• More responsive decisions by:
–Assigning clear responsibility to the decision
recommender to drive the process and the
decisionmaker to make the decision
• Greater transparency into decision-
making
–Staff members ‘know where they stand’ with
respect to each decision
• Reduced conflict by reducing role
confusion
–Clear decision roles eliminates unnecessary
tensions

18. +  Think tank - The decision making
ability of the think tank of any
Decision Making organization, be it the local city
council or United Nations, decides
Approaches how effective a role it will play in the
world. Many organizations exist for
the sake of existing and despite
phenomenal amount of resources
available at their disposal, they
hardly do any work. That is because
there is no will or decision making
ability at the helm.
 Devil’s Advocate: One member of
the group acts as the devil’s
advocate and critiques the way the
group identified alternatives.

19. +  Rational model :This is the
most popular type of model
and is based around a
cognitive judgment of the pros
and cons of various options. It
is organized around selecting
the most logical and
sensible alternative that will
have the desired effect.
Detailed analysis of
alternatives and a comparative
assessment of the advantages
of each is the order of the day.

20. +  The focus group technique :
 Decision Making by more
than one person
 Usually followed in
organizations
 It has some advantages and
some disadvantages

21. +  Intuition/common sense:
The ability to very rapidly
process information, more
physically than mentally, so
that you can make effective
and long lasting decisions that
benefit you.

22. +  Strategic Planning: Planning
allows decisions to be made in
a much more comfortable and
intelligent way. Planning even
makes decisions easier by
providing guidelines and goals
for the decision. We might
even say that planning is a
type of decision simplification
technique

23. +
Decision Making
Personal, Group and Institutional Decision Making Approaches
Approaches Personal Group Institution
Intuition/Common Sense √
Rational Approach √
Strategic Planning √
Think Tank √ √
Devils’Advocate √ √
Focus Group √ √

24. +
Thank You…