An important activity for an organization’s leaders and managers is making decisions associated with problem-solving. Making decisions is a complex endeavor where choices are made from courses of action where resources are limited and in the presence of constraints. Written as a guide, this book offers a quantitative approach to decision-making. The process of decision-making is presented from a holistic point of view. This book offers a basic understanding of the issues and processes involved in decision-making by presenting the tools associated with problem analysis, tools that enable developing choices, as well as tools used to normalize judgment criteria achievement so that they are comparable across measures using different scales. Several solution methods for decision problems that have one evaluation criterion are explained first. Methods for problems with multiple criteria for evaluating alternate solutions are discussed as well. The multiple criteria methods include those that do not require any explicit preference or trade-off information from the decision-maker and those that do require the decision-maker’s preference or trade-off information. The intended audience of the book includes technical and nontechnical professionals, managers, and supervisors at all levels, and engineering and business educators. The book would also be useful to undergraduate students, beginning graduate students, and recent graduates of professional programs, or in mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and humanities.

An important activity for an organization's leaders and managers is making decisions associated with problem-solving. Making decisions is a complex endeavor where choices are made from courses of action where resources are limited and in the presence of constraints. Written as a guide, this book offers a quantitative approach to decision-making. The process of decision-making is presented from a holistic point of view. This book offers a basic understanding of the issues and processes involved in decision-making by presenting the tools associated with problem analysis, tools that enable developing choices, as well as tools used to normalize judgment criteria achievement so that they are comparable across measures using different scales. Several solution methods for decision problems that have one evaluation criterion are explained first. Methods for problems with multiple criteria for evaluating alternate solutions are discussed as well. The multiple criteria methods include those that do not require any explicit preference or trade-off information from the decision-maker and those that do require the decision-maker's preference or trade-off information. The intended audience of the book includes technical and nontechnical professionals, managers, and supervisors at all levels, and engineering and business educators. The book would also be useful to undergraduate students, beginning graduate students, and recent graduates of professional programs, or in mathematics, computer science, natural sciences, and humanities.

This book outlines the creative process of making environmental management decisions using the approach called Structured Decision Making. It is a short introductory guide to this popular form of decision making and is aimed at environmental managers and scientists. This is a distinctly pragmatic label given to ways for helping individuals and groups think through tough multidimensional choices characterized by uncertain science, diverse stakeholders, and difficult tradeoffs. This is the everyday reality of environmental management, yet many important decisions currently are made on an ad hoc basis that lacks a solid value-based foundation, ignores key information, and results in selection of an inferior alternative. Making progress – in a way that is rigorous, inclusive, defensible and transparent – requires combining analytical methods drawn from the decision sciences and applied ecology with deliberative insights from cognitive psychology, facilitation and negotiation. The authors review key methods and discuss case-study examples based in their experiences in communities, boardrooms, and stakeholder meetings. The goal of this book is to lay out a compelling guide that will change how you think about making environmental decisions. Visit www.wiley.com/go/gregory/ to access the figures and tables from the book.

Few managers devote enough attention to the thinking processes they should apply to their jobs. Yet long, energetic hours at work are wasted if business decisions are not logical, clear – and correct. Effective Decision Making is the definitive guide to the crucial managerial skill of creative thinking. In this classic book John Adair, Britain’s foremost expert on leadership training, tells you everything you need to know to enable you to analyse your own thought processes, think outside the box and know when to turn to others to help you make your decisions. Including advice on every aspect of the decision-making process, Effective Decision Making will help you to: • Approach problems efficiently and effectively – define objective, collect information, develop options, evaluate, decide and implement • Think in a more imaginative way • Know when to rely on your intuition • Feel more confident about arguing your case • Develop your thinking skills With examples of good and poor decision making, as well as exercises designed to help you maintain and improve your mental fitness, Effective Decision Making will enable you to master one of the most important skills needed to make you an effective leader.

Where should I live? Is it time to get a new job? Which job candidate should I hire? What business strategy should I pursue? We spend the majority of our lives making decisions, both big and small. Yet, even though our success is largely determined by the choices that we make, very few of us are equipped with useful decision-making skills. Because of this, we often approach our choices tentatively, or even fearfully, and avoid giving them the time and thought required to put our best foot forward. In Smart Choices, John Hammond, Ralph Keeney, and Howard Raiffa--experts with over 100 years of experience resolving complex decision problems--offer a proven, straightforward, and flexible roadmap for making better and more impactful decisions, and offer the tools to achieve your goals in every aspect of your life. Their step-by-step, divide-and conquer approach will teach you how to: * Evaluate your plans * Break your potential decision into its key elements * Identify the key drivers that are most relevant to your goals * Apply systematic thinking * Use the right information to make the smartest choice Smart Choices doesn’t tell you what to decide; it tells you how. As you routinely use the process, you’ll become more confident in your ability to make decisions at work and at home. And, more importantly, by applying its time-tested methods, you’ll make better decisions going forward. Be proactive. Don’t wait until a decision is forced on you--or made for you. Seek out decisions that advance your long-term goals, values, and beliefs. Take charge of your life by making Smart Choices a lifetime habit.

Why do the people in some companies continually dazzle us with their brilliant decisions while those in others make one blunder after another? Do they understand their businesses better? Are they just plain smarter? Or is it all a matter of luck? The answer, says J. Frank Yates, is none of the above. The real key, rarely recognized, is how the leaders manage the company's decision processes—the leaders' decision management practices. Drawing on his thirty years of research and experience as well as scholarship from psychology, economics, statistics, strategy, medicine, and other fields to explain the fundamental nature of business decision problems, Yates highlights the ten cardinal decision issues crucial to managing the decision-making process—and ultimately better company decisions. He covers problems ranging from recognizing whether a decision is actually called for to assuring that a preferred course of action will be implemented. He shows how solid decisions result when managers ensure that deciders resolve every cardinal issue effectively for every decision problem facing the company. He also reveals how, conversely, chronically poor decisions are traceable to managers allowing—or even creating—conditions that encourage deciders to fall short in how they address at least one of those critical issues.

Deciding by Roger Estall and Grant Purdy This book is intended to help decision-makers of all types make even better decisions. The central thesis is that whether 'Deciders' realise it or not, all decisions are made using what the authors describe as 'the universal method of decision-making'. The adequacy of each decision therefore depends on how skilfully the method is applied, whether Deciders achieve 'sufficient certainty' about the outcomes that will flow from the decision and the contribution made by those outcomes to the organisation's Purpose. The authors shun jargon. The eight chapters and five appendices of the book include many practical tips with examples and anecdotes from various sectors that explain the universal method. Issues such as context, assumptions, and detecting and responding to change after the decision is made are addressed and there are clear, simple diagrams - including an easy-to-follow illustration of the universal method - to help the reader grasp the main concepts. The authors say that Deciding is a book for thinkers, rather than for those seeking a formulaic or procedurally rigid methodology. They will have realised their goal, they say, if Deciding causes readers to reflect on the way they apply the universal method, reinforce what they already do well, and recognise opportunities to improve. The Authors Roger Estall and Grant Purdy who first met in 2003, have similar, yet separate 40+ year careers as both Deciders and advisers. They have each chaired and served on boards and held executive and technical management roles in multiple areas of the public, private and not-for-profit sectors. Now based in Sydney and Melbourne respectively, their careers have taken them to many parts of the world.