THE SPECIALIST WITH A UNIVERSAL MINDANDREW VAZSONYI, Feature Editor, McLaren School of Business, University of San FranciscoThe Decision Facilitator and Decision Conferencingby Andrew Vazsonyi, University of San Francisco In our teaching and textbooks we still use the worn-out decision-making paradigm:
Practicing decision scientists do not use this normative paradigm. They know that management starts with a confused, unstructured situation, not with a problem. There is no "solution to the problem," no "optimum" solution. The best management can do is to satisfice. Neither the alternatives, nor the goals are well known. Uncertainty, lack of information, the cognitive style of managers, are all important factors. There are always multiattribute, conflicting goals; decisions are made not by individuals but by groups. Practicing decision scientists are client-consumer and intervention oriented; their single goal is to help management. They are change agents, leaders and catalysts, skilled helpers, as are psychotherapists, ministers, family counselors, and bartenders. Unfortunately, in our textbooks we create the impression that the classical paradigm is still valid, and we don't even have a name or label to identify the new, practical approach. Recently Quaddus, et al. (1992) reported success on a new way management can make decisions. Decision conferencing is a process for solving strategic decision problems in which the owners of the problem get together for discussion and are supported by decision facilitators, and by on-line, interactive, computer systems. (Paraphrased from Quaddus et al.) The goals of the decision facilitator are:
The tools of the decision facilitator are all the techniques of the decision sciences, plus information technology and techniques of behavioral decision making. The primary approach is to use computer-based models, perform input- output and sensitivity analyses, answer WHAT-IF questions and perform SOLVE-IT analysis. Decision facilitators do their best to adapt the normative theory of decision making to the bounded rationality of managers. Most of the tools of decision facilitators are well described in our textbooks, and I want to focus here only on three perspectives. WHAT-IF Scenario Management The decision facilitator adapts decision sciences to real-life modes of decision conferencing, where managers get together to resolve situations, solve problems, study tradeoffs, and reach decisions. The common heuristic is to consider computer-generated scenarios, where a business scenario is a sequence of events, especially when imagined, or an account or synopsis of a projected course of action or events. A large variety of inputs are used, many outputs are generated, answering WHAT-IF and sensitivity questions. Spreadsheets empower millions of managers to carry out WHAT-IF analysis. Designers of spreadsheets realize this and new spreadsheets provide many powerful expanded tools for scenario management. SOLVE-IT Scenario Management Most scenario manager generators use decision variables as inputs, and calculate measures of effectiveness, utilities, as outputs. The more pertinent approach of starting with goals and working back to decisions (Keeney, 1992), a SOLVE-IT process, is harder to realize and requires algorithms. The archetypes of this approach is linear programming and its extensions, and more specifically, goal programming. When decision facilitators advocate this proactive approach, they stimulate management to uncover new opportunities and alternatives before a decision is made. New spreadsheets include such solvers for linear and nonlinear optimization problems to empower managers to use this proactive approach. Pictorial Representations Pictorial representations "depict" their objects by reassembling or mimicking them in ways that are hard to do linguistically. Everyday examples are geographic maps, graphs, scale models, and photographs. The decision facilitator uses them as basic tools to match the mental represen- tations managers use to make decisions. Influence charts serve as graphical bridges to mathematical models; tornado and spider diagrams, radar charts, tradeoff curves, all serve to image WHAT-IF sensitivity scenarios. Spreadsheets are particularly suitable at simultaneously managing data, formulas, and graphics, and for fusing the three into a single one. The information is not in the form of abstract mathematical notation, but relies on more intuitive representations. This is the trait that makes spreadsheets powerful tools for modeling business situations, creating business scenarios and supporting decision conferencing. What We Need to Teach Decision scientists do not replace decision makers; they facilitate decision making. We must stop teaching the normative paradigm, and replace it with the decision facilitating paradigm. The central features are WHAT-IF and SOLVE-IT processes to manage business scenarios. Techniques of decision sciences emerge as tools to provide WHAT-IF and SOLVE-IT analysis. We must abandon the preoccupation with SOLVE-IT analysis and include emphasis on WHAT-IF analysis. Computers and spreadsheets, in particular, provide the practical tools to introduce students to the facilitating paradigm. Pictorial representations are not afterthoughts; they are integral parts of decision conferencing. We need to teach not how to design spreadsheets, but how to design spreadsheet-based scenario generators. References Keeney, R. L.,Value Focused Thinking, A Path to Creative Decision Making, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, Mass., 1992. Quaddus, M. A., Atkinson, D. J., Levy, M., "An application of decision conferencing to strategic planning for a voluntary organization," Interfaces, 22:6, November-December 1992, pp. 61-71.
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