Decision Making

There is always a point in time where everyone has to a make an important decision in there life. Whether it's buying a home, taking your company in a new direction, or choosing a college, making an important decision can be very difficult. When it comes to making these important decisions, in order to come up with the best or most logical decision one must follow a decision making model in some way. Not everyone thinks the same, so therefore there is no such think as just one universal decision making model. Everyone has there own views and follows a different guideline when it comes to making a decision.

According to the University of Waterloo's philosophy department, a decision making model consists of 6 steps: Define the problem, define the criteria, weigh the criteria, generate alternatives, rate each alternative on each criterion, and compute the optimal decision. When faced with a decision you must define problem that is forcing you to make or is causing you to make the decision as in step one. In step two you must define the criteria, for example what goals or objectives to you want to accomplish in your process of making your decision. If you're making a decision about going to college what goals and accomplishment to you want to achieve while you're in college. In step three, you must identify what criteria are going to affect your goals, for example: the location of the college you chose is it far or is it close. In step four generate alternatives, for example compile a list of schools to choose from. Step five; rate each alternative, for example if your going to college, which one of the college that you chose will give you thee best education in the field that you want to get involved in. and in the final step, step six make your decision, if you want a school that is not to far from home, and it give you the best of what your looking for, then choose that school.

No one can say that they have not use a decision making model, when making a decision. When you're making that important decision, you may not think your using a decision model, but you are when you analyze it. In my job field of computer selling and repair I'm forced to make decisions all the time. Everyday when I go to work, I meet a new customer, and that customer is looking to buy a computer. The first step would be defining the problem, like do they want a desktop or a laptop. Then I identify the objectives, like I want to get the customer the right computer and everything that they need for the computer, or what benefits are they going to get going with a laptop or desktop. Then I weigh the criteria. if the customer