3. Decision Making Process
• According to Baker..
“efficient decision-making involves a series of steps
that require the input of information at different
stages of the process, as well as a process for
feedback”.
• In Psychology..
decision-making is regarded as the cognitive process
resulting in the selection of a belief or a course of
action among several alternative possibilities.
5. Decision Making Process
• Defined simply as:
“ A process of making a
choice between a numbers
of options and committing
to a future course of
actions”.
7. Steps in Decision Making Process
Step 1
• Identify the problem
Step 2
• Diagnosing the problem
Step 3
• Discover alternative courses of
action
Step 4
• Evaluate alternatives
Step 5
• Select the best alternatives
Step 6
• Implementing and follow up
action
8. • This stage involves understanding with absolute clarity what the issue is and
what type of decision is going to be made.
• The first thing one has to do is to state the underlying problem that has to be
solved. You have to clearly state the outcome that you desire after you have
made the decision.
This step includes:
Make sure it’s a problem and not just a symptom of a problem.
Problem identification is subjective.
Discrepancies can be found by comparing current results with some
standard.
Managers aren’t likely to characterize a discrepancy as a problem if they
perceive that they don’t have the authority, information, or other resources
needed to act on it.
• Identify the problemStep 1
9. • Diagnosing the problemStep 2
• This stage is where you will do an extensive analysis of the issue and
really delve into many facets.
• This is necessary to classify the problem in order to know who must take
the decision and who must be informed about the decision taken.
This step includes:
Explore the issue from different perspective(ex: using the
diverse expertise of your decision-making team)
Ask what, why, when, who, where, and how questions so the
issue is fully revealed.)
Refine the decision statement based on this analysis.
10. • Discover alternative courses of actionStep 3
• In this step of the decision-making process, you will list all
possible and desirable alternatives.
• Here, you do not have to restrict yourself to think about the
very obvious options, rather you can use your creative skills
and come out with alternatives that may look a little
irrelevant.
• You would also have to do adequate research to come up
with the necessary facts that would aid in solving the
problem.
11. • Evaluate alternativesStep 4
• One of the most important stages of the decision-making procedure where
you have to analyze each alternative you have come up with.
This step includes:
Finding out the advantages and disadvantages of each option.
Filter out the options that you think are impossible or do not serve
your purpose.
Rating each option with a numerical digit would also help in the
filtration process.
12. • Select the best alternativesStep 5
• In this step is where the hard work you have put in
analyzing would lead to a proper decision.
• This includes selecting the alternative which seems
to be best suited to you.
• Choice of the best alternative is the most critical
point in decision making.
13. • Implementing and follow up actionStep 6
• In this step you experience the results of your decision and
evaluate whether or not it has “solved” the need you identified
in Step 1. If it has, you may stay with this decision for some
period of time.
• If the decision has not resolved the identified need, you may
repeat certain steps of the process in order to make a new
decision.
• Ex: example, gather more detailed or somewhat different
information or discover additional alternatives on which to
base your decision.
