Personal Perspective Paper

Running Head: DECISION-MAKING MODELS

My Experience with Decision-Making Models

Angela Lester

University of Phoenix

Figure 1.

In today’s society, everybody makes decisions. It's a natural part of life and most of the time, we don't even think about the process. In an organization, decisions are made at every level. The level at which the decision is made can also determine the complexity of the decision in relation to the input of data and output of information.

Additionally, history clearly shows the decision-maker who best analyzes, decides, and controls the pace of interaction with an opponent will prevail, whether that opponent is an unthinking force of nature or a thinking human. To represent the functions performed during decision-making, researchers have traditionally used a process model similar to the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act). This model (Figure 1) represents decision making as a series of steps or stages (Flin, Salas, Strub, Martin, 2001).

In essence, some decisions are very structured while others are primarily unstructured. For example, I may wake up in the morning and make the structured, routine decision to get out of bed. Then I am forced to make the unstructured decision of what clothes to wear that day (for some of us this may be an incredibly routine decision). Structured decisions involve definite procedures and are not necessarily very complex (Howard, 2003). Yet, the more unstructured a decision becomes, the more complex it becomes.

Likewise, there are stages of decision-making. Some people seem to make sudden or impulsive decisions. Other people seem to make extremely slow, deliberate decisions. Regardless of appearances, the decision-making process follows the same stages of development and implementation. For the most part, regardless of the situation, every decision involves intelligence, design, choice, and implementation.

In contrast, no matter how much an individual knows, he or she can't possibly know everything. No one can possibly know all the input to a decision, process all the possible outcomes, and know every output from the final decision. By the same token, neither can an information system. However, an information system can gather more input, process it faster, and output more alternatives than a human can (Cannon-Bowers, Salas, Pruitt, 2002).

Nonetheless, humans make decisions based on experience and in very distinct ways based on their frame of reference. For instance, some people won't buy a certain type of television because they haven't had "good luck" with that brand before. Based on their experience, they choose a different alternative than another person would. Yet, some people will do careful, extensive research into all the possible models of televisions and make a decision based on that data. In fact, some individuals will purchase the same brand of television as the one they already have. In regards to this scenario, I usually research and insist on finding out how great a product is as well, before actually making a decision to purchase. I usually base my decision