Decision Making

Assignment 1 1. All decisions occur in a milieu of constraints. Briefly describe an important decision you have been involved with. What were the major constraints you or other decision makers faced when making this decision? How did these constraints affect the decision outcome? (1 page) 2. Identify five routine decisions you’ve made in the past twenty four hours. For each decision, what were the principal decision-related challenges you faced? To what extent where these challenges handled at the conscious level when making your decision (i.e., Did you reflect on them before making the decision? Did your reflections influence the decisions?)? (1 page) 3. Traditional approaches to decision making emphasize the need for rationality. (1 page total) a. When we say decisions need to be rational, what do we mean? b. Why is the need for rationality such a strongly held belief among theorists and practitioners of decision making? That is, why do so many people believe that it is a core requirement for effective decisions? Assignments MGT236. Decision Making 2014 University of Management and Technology 2 Assignment 2 1. Read up on the following famous decisions using Wikipedia and other sources.  Sony’s decision to develop, produce and market the Walkman  President Kennedy’s decision to blockade Cuba during the Cuban missile crisis of October 1962  Treasury Secretary Paulson’s decision to launch the Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP) in the Fall of 2008 (1-2 pages total) a. Identify the key players in the social space for each decision—include stakeholders, decision makers and implementers, the public and external forces. b. Identify the perspectives and roles of each player (or set of players). 2. Consider a decision of consequence you have been involved with sometime in the past year or two. (1-2 pages total) a. Provide background on the rationale for the decision, i.e., What problem did the decision address? Who were its principal champions? b. Identify the key decision makers. How diverse were their views on the issues covered by the decision? Once the decision was made, how much support did it receive from the decision making “team”? c. How smooth was the transition from the decision making phase to the decision implementation phase? To what extent did the implementers fully understand their charge? To what extend did the implementers support or resist the underlying decision as handed to them by the decision makers? How good a job did the implementers do in implementing the decision handed to them by the decision makers? 3. Identify a non-trivial decision you worked on recently involving more than two people. (1-2 page total) a. Who were the players in the decision’s social space? b. What were the particular perspectives each held regarding the decision? c. To what extent were there overlaps in their perspectives? Conflict? d. In making the decision, how were the players’ multiple perspectives reconciled? e. At the end of the decision process, were there clearly identified “winners” and “losers”? Explain. Assignments MGT236. Decision Making 2014 University of Management and Technology 3 4. The United States Supreme Court is comprised of nine justices, each assuming his/her lifetime position by means of a Presidential appointment. While the justices pledge to resolve legal issues on their merits, guided by the precepts of the US Constitution, it is clear that their judgments are heavily colored by their personal, social, political and religious perspectives. This becomes quite clear when they make judgments on so-called social issues. Framing Decisions states that a review of the workings of the Supreme Court in its decision making capacity—i.e., in rendering judgments on the Constitutionality of laws and behaviors—shows that determining whether decision processes and outcomes are rational doesn’t make sense when dealing with decisions made by collective bodies that wrestle with decisions of consequence. (1-2 pages total) a. Provide an argument that supports the Framing Decisions perspective. b. Provide an argument that refutes the Framing Decisions perspective. c. Framing Decisions suggests that when dealing with fairly trivial decisions made by individuals, the rationality of a decision process and its outcome is fairly easy to determine. What is the rationale of this assertion? Do you agree with it? Explain. d. Framing Decisions suggests that when dealing with decisions of consequence that have objectively verifiable correct answers, we can determine whether the decision process and its outcome are rational. What is the rationale of this assertion? Do you agree with it? Explain. Assignments MGT236. Decision Making 2014 University of Management and Technology 4 Assignment 3 1. People living in democracies often believe that the best way to govern communities of people is to employ simple majority rule. (1 page total) a. In what way does super-majority rule remedy some of the deficiencies of simple majority rule? b. While it would be great if communities achieved 100% consensus in support of decisions, this seldom happens. Why? Does the absence of 100% consensus lead to weaker decisions? 2. In today’s world, autocratic decision making is often viewed negatively. When is it appropriate for decision makers to operate autocratically? (1/2 page) 3. Strong leaders in many organizations employ a consultative leader decision making style. (1 page total) a. Why does it work effectively in communities/companies with strong leaders? b. If you have an ineffective leader, how can the consultative decision making style lead to dysfunctional decision making? 4. Honey bee democracy. (1-2 pages total) a. What is honey bee democracy? b. How do essentially brainless bees make collective decisions that yield optimal results? How does a community of bees decide where to relocate their new hive? What are the key decision making components of this process? c. In what sense can distributed, decentralized decision making lead yield excellent results—consider the experiences of Wikipedia, Linux, the King James Bible, the maintenance of the world scientific enterprise, and the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language? Assignments MGT236. Decision Making 2014 University of Management and Technology 5 Assignment 4 1. Visual illusions (also called optical illusions) show that the brain can be readily fooled. (1 page) a. What insights do visual illusions offer us regarding the workings of the brain? b. How can these insights be extended to explain the brain’s role in decision making? 2. One of the most intriguing questions we face when studying how the brain functions in making decisions is: What role does the unconscious brain play in decision making? (1-2 pages total) a. What are the strengths and limitations of the conscious brain in decision making? b. How can the unconscious brain contribute to an individual’s decision making capability? c. What do anecdotal accounts—such as those provided by Malcolm Gladwell in Blink—tell us about the role of the unconscious brain in decision making? d. What do experimental studies—such as those carried out by Wilson and Dijksterhuis—tell us? e. Based on the experimental studies reported in Framing Decisions, what are the merits of making on-the-spot decisions vs. decisions after substantial deliberation (e.g, by sleeping on a decision)? 3. Page 104 of Framing Decisions identifies four sets of questions decisions makers need to address when making decisions of consequence in order to surface potential moral hazard situations. Explain the rationale underlying each question. If you ask these questions when deliberating on decisions of consequence, how can you improve the quality of your decision making? (1-2 pages) Assignments MGT236. Decision Making 2014 University of Management and Technology 6 Assignment 5 1. Consider the following case study that illustrates public policy decision making at the local level of government. Smithville is a small city with 125,000 inhabitants. Because of a weak economy, a significant part of its population is facing bad economic circumstances—an estimated 2,000 families have unemployed heads-of-households and are at or below the poverty line. The overall unemployment rate in Smithville is 12%. The City Council is considering the establishment of a food bank to help suffering families survive the tough economic times. A budget review indicates that the city has the financial resources to support 2,000 families, with an average of four members per family, for a period of 18 months. As Framing Decisions points out, public policy is largely about decision making. The biggest issue in public policy is making decisions that lead to “the greatest good for the greatest number” (in the words of Jeremy Bentham, a leading Utilitarian thinker of the 19th century). Invariably, there are multiple views on what constitutes “the greatest good” and how its benefits should be distributed among the population. There are also disputes on the role of government in solving societal problems, with liberals believing that government should play an active role in solving such problems, and conservatives (particularly Libertarians) holding that problems can be best resolved through the actions of the free market. (1-2 pages total) a. In the case of Smithville, what is the likely position of City Council liberals regarding the establishment of a food bank? What is their rationale for holding this position? Be specific—avoid vague generalities. Take into consideration both the costs and benefits of pursuing a policy based on this position. b. What is the likely position of City Council conservatives? What is their rationale? Be specific—avoid vague generalities. Take into consideration both the costs and benefits of pursuing a policy based on this position. c. Playing the role of objective observer, what do you think are the merits and shortcomings of both liberal and conservative viewpoints? d. How does this case study illustrate the types of issues public policy makers face when dealing with both big and little problems? 2. The US Department of Defense (DoD) in recent years has greatly advanced the capabilities of unmanned vehicles. These are air, ground, surface or underwater vehicles equipped with various technologies including sensors, communications, navigation, and computer vision and are capable of performing missions autonomously without human intervention. The technologies that enabled these unmanned systems are also appearing in the commercial world. One area is the driverless car. Like the unmanned military systems, these driverless cars can transport passengers without human inputs. Future Vehicles Corporation (FVC) is a traditional defense contractor providing unmanned vehicles to the military, with revenue of $1.2 billion employing 50,000 people. However, the company is seeing decline in revenue due to the reduction in defense budget as well as stiff competition from domestic and international competitors. As a Assignments MGT236. Decision Making 2014 University of Management and Technology 7 result, the company wants to venture into the commercial world of driverless car. (1-2 pages total) a. The CEO wants you to make a list of pros and cons to entering the commercial market. b. Conduct a SWOT analysis to help the CEO make a decision. c. What other information might the CEO need in order to make a good decision?      

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