The science of decision making
Life is ultimately an array of choices. From simply choosing between eggs and cereals for breakfast down to the more complex ones, our lives are a result of choices.
But you see, every choice made is always preceded by a decision to make that choice. We can say decisions are a precursor of choices.
Choices affect the final turn out of every undertaking, which make them very important.
Equally important are the decisions made to make a particular choice from a selection and even more important are the opinions, facts, circumstances, occurrences and any other pronouns that fits in to describe what led to the decision.
Understanding that decision making and the process of decision making is an important factor in determining success is the reason why I have decided to do an analysis of how decisions are perceived to work on a technical level.
In this post we are going to discuss the various types of decisions and how they work.
What is a decision?
Decision making is a process of choosing one alternative from many in order to reach a goal. It can be defined as the act or process of deciding something.
A good decision is one that takes into account all available information and provides the best possible outcome.
Types of decisions
In some opinions, decisions can be classified in one or two different ways(or even more) depending on the context or condition the decisions are based on.
For the first and the most popular classification, we can categorize decisions into either qualitative or quantitative decisions.
Quantitative decisions are the most linear type of the two classes. It mostly relies on the analysis of huge quantities of data to find trends, similarities, anomalies and what not.
Hundred percent of the time, this type of decision making does not emphasize on the quality of data that is being analyzed. Though, majority of the time the truth value of that data has to be established before the data is analyzed, sometimes, it isn't.
Obviously, from a technical point of view we should be able to discern that using this approach to make decisions can easily lead to errors. In cases where irrelevant data is relied on to make decisions, a decision maker can easily make the wrong ones.
Qualitative decisions on the other hand, relies heavily on the relevance and quality of data involved. This method of decision making ensures that whatever data is used as a foundation for the result is totally impactful and related to the issue at hand.
This makes sure the decision that is finally arrived is the best possible of available options.
Also, from the perspective of a business manager or operation. Decisions can be classified into structured and unstructured decisions.
There are two main levels of decision making in every organization. Either decisions are made at a strategic level or they are made at an operational level.
Operational level decisions tend to always follow a specific routine with very little exceptions and it usually takes a repetitive form which means that the same the decision is to be made time and time again at set intervals.
Such routine-like form of decision is known as a structured decision.
However for operations on a strategic level we can refer to them as unstructured decisions. This is because most decisions made on such a level do not have a specific form, walkthrough or manual to utilize.
Decisions like this one are usually left to management and key personnel to make.
What are your thoughts on decision making. Kindly share in the comments.