Basics of Decision Making

721 Words3 Pages
Basics of Decision Making Student’s Name Name of Institution Basics of Decision Making Decision making is a thinking process of selecting suitable logic choice or choices from a readily available options. On a daily basis human beings make decisions. Even though some decisions are made subconsciously, such as breathing, coughing, blinking, most people are active in the decision making process. Humans decide what shoes they are going to wear, what radio station they are going to listen to, and how they are going to get to work each day just to name a few (John, 2003). The final outcome of a good decision making process is a good decision. When one is trying to come up with a good decision, it is advisable for them to weigh the positive and negative sides of each option and evaluate the alternative. The process of decision making can be influenced by one’s desire, state of emotion, and intuition among others. Decision making consists of two phases: problem structuring and evaluation (Barry, 2002). Problem structuring involves the pointing out of alternatives, values that separate the alternatives from each other and evaluation involves the weighing the desirable attributes of various outcomes and the impacts of uncertain events in deciding which alternative is best. When it comes to decision making and problem solving three things are crucial: the courage to be rational, creativity in problem structuring and having a balanced judgment. The courage to be rational faces up to complexity in order to get the problem solved; creativity adds to complexity in order to achieve a more complete understanding of the problem; and balanced judgment evaluates complexity in an even handed manner in order to reduce it to a choice of the single best alternative (Barry, 2002). Identifying the problem is the first step in decision making process.
Open Document