Decision Making Tools

Decision Making Tools

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Decision Making Tools

The decision making process in an organization is as important as the decision itself. With that, this paper will identify some of the tools and techniques that are usually implemented in the decision making processes of an organization. Moreover, this paper will also clarify the right situations or time that the tools should be used. Apparently, it is always important to choose the best tool that can provide the team with the most beneficial decision, but the selection process may be more complicated than expected because of the many choices to choose from.

One of the most used tools is Brainstorming. This is a tool or process used to gather and organize all the thoughts and ideas from the members of the team. But brainstorming is not only applicable to a group, this can also be done by an individual as his or her way of weighing out creative thoughts. Brainstorming is seen to be an effective way of welcoming ideas that can provide the company with the utmost advantage. In fact, in our company's case, brainstorming was the main tool that our manager used in order to change our business direction. According to Langdon (2006), Brainstorming is a tool, which should ideally help in the progress of the company, and at the same time make the members comfortable in expressing their ideas. All the issues that need to be discussed can be easily opened up through brainstorming. And more importantly, decisions can be easily made as the flow of ideas seems faster and richer through brainstorming. An organization also need to have its own decision0making model, in order for the decision makers to consistently arrive at sound and well-informed decisions. One integral part of the decisions that managers would make is their own experience. Rational thoughts plus experiences have been proven to be a good match when deciding. Brainstorming is not only applicable in business settings, because I have personally used it both in my business and personal life. There are indeed many ways to approach a decision making process. Aside from that, I have also used other techniques such as scenarios, decision tree, and six thinking hats.

The decision tree is one of the best tools to use if the aim is to identify the best strategy to use in order to reach a certain goal. Among all the identified tools, decision tree is properly the easiest tool to understand and use. Having identified the probable consequences of a decision, then it can be easy to evaluate which of the options are most beneficial. With this, decision tree is most important in determining the best course of action to be undertaken given a certain situation. With decision tree, the decision maker can have a clear view of the option he or she has as well as the probable risks and consequences of the decision. Furthermore, cost benefit analysis is also another decision making tool that is relatively easy to use and at the same guarantees utmost effectiveness (Langdon, 2006). This tool is known to be the best one to use for organizations who are trying to implement change. As the name suggests, this tool involves determining the benefits that can be derived from the decision subtracted to the cost of the decision implementation. More often than not, cost benefit analysis is usually done when making financial decisions, specifically when it comes to financial costs and benefits. However, this tool can also have a subjective aspect wherein it can be used in weighing out of intangible assets of an organization or company. For instance, cost benefit analysis can be done when deciding on building a new access road. Although there are some financial concerns to this project, like the cost for the construction and the economic benefits, there are also intangible assets included in such project.