Effective Decision Making
Description
An individual’s ability to make good decisions impacts every level of the organization, as well as the customers whom the organization serves. Whether or not people work as managers and whether people work at the top, middle, or ground-level of an organization, business success depends on the ability of employees to make great decisions with as much consistency as possible.
This workshop examines a 7-step, systematic approach to decision making. Participants explore the objectives of each step and several tools that they can use to rigorously address each piece of the decision-making puzzle.
Using group discussions, team problem solving, and role-playing practice, participants develop a pragmatic, self-confident approach to making decisions with limited information in situations involving uncertainty.
Who Should Attend
Anyone who leads or participates in making decisions for themselves, for their team, for their organization, and for their customers.
You Will Learn
After this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Make decisions with limited amounts of information and when there is uncertainty
- Demonstrate the analytical skills necessary to make sound, well-informed, and timely decisions, or recommendations to other decision makers
- Apply a systematic decision-making process, which includes risk assessment, communication guidelines for how to share their evaluations, and the development of action plans for how to implement these decisions
- Effectively respond to decision making challenges or obstacles
Course Outline: A systematic approach for making decisions
Personal Assessment
- “How Good is Your Decision Making?”
Step 1: Create a Constructive Environment
- Stakeholder analysis
- Deciding how to decide and how much to involve other people
- The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model
- The Kepner-Tregoe Matrix for making unbiased, risk-assessed decisions
- Understanding the decision cycle
- Making decisions under pressure
- Avoiding GroupThink during team decision making
Step 2: Investigate the Situation in Detail
- Determining whether the stated problem is the real issue through Root Cause Analysis
- How to extract the greatest amount of information from what you know
- Using Inductive Reasoning to draw sound conclusions from the facts
- How to explore a problem from multiple perspectives to make sure that you are not missing important information
Step 3: Generate A Number of Good Alternatives
- Creativity/idea-generation tools
- Overcoming barriers to creativity
- Reverse Brainstorming
- Brainwriting
- Round-Robin Brainstorming for teams
- Using Random Input – how to make creative leaps with little actual information
- Considering how others outside your group might influence or be affected by a decision
- Reframing Matrix
- Perceptual Positions
Step 4: Explore Your Options
- How to evaluate feasibility, risks, and implications of each alternative
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Impact/Probability Chart
- ORAPAPA or Impact Analysis for considering the potential consequences of each option
- Starbursting to think about the questions you should ask to evaluate each option
- Cost-Benefits Analysis
Step 5: Select the Best Solution
- Decision Matrix Analysis for reliably and rigorously comparing options
- Decision Trees
- Reaching a Group Consensus for team decision making
- Deciding whether to go forward
- Go/No-Go Decisions
- What-If Analysis
Step 6: Evaluate Your Plan
- How to “sense check” your decision
- Considering common psychological biases in decision making
- Blindspot Analysis to assess whether common decision-making problems may have undermined the process
- The Ladder of Inference to avoid jumping to conclusions
- Decision making under uncertainty
- The impact of ethics and values on decision making
Step 7: Communicate Your Decision & Take Action
- How to assemble information from the decision-making process into a communication strategy
- Force Field Analysis
Up to 30 students
- Virtual Classes will be a live, Instructor lead class in Zoom for Government, a virtual technical assistant VTA will be available to assist students with any technical issues, take roll, administer evaluations, and distribute certificates of completion. Course materials will be provided electronically.
- Onsite classes will be held at your location. The instructor will travel to you. Materials will be printed and shipped to your site. A sign-up sheet will be provided for student to enter their name (as they want it on their certificate) and the email address to send the certificate to. GSA travel costs will be added to the course fee. Contact us for a travel estimate.
- A minimum of 2 weeks lead time is needed for virtual classes, 3 weeks for onsite classes.
Questions? Contact our training coordinator via email or phone at (202) 843.5447.
From Risk to Readiness: Scenario Planning as a Tool for Your Business
From Risk to Readiness: Scenario Planning as a Tool for Your Business
1 hour Live online or 1.5 hours In-person
Effective Decision Making
Description
An individual’s ability to make good decisions impacts every level of the organization, as well as the customers whom the organization serves. Whether or not people work as managers and whether people work at the top, middle, or ground-level of an organization, business success depends on the ability of employees to make great decisions with as much consistency as possible.
This workshop examines a 7-step, systematic approach to decision making. Participants explore the objectives of each step and several tools that they can use to rigorously address each piece of the decision-making puzzle.
Using group discussions, team problem solving, and role-playing practice, participants develop a pragmatic, self-confident approach to making decisions with limited information in situations involving uncertainty.
Who Should Attend
Anyone who leads or participates in making decisions for themselves, for their team, for their organization, and for their customers.
You Will Learn
After this workshop, participants will be able to:
- Make decisions with limited amounts of information and when there is uncertainty
- Demonstrate the analytical skills necessary to make sound, well-informed, and timely decisions, or recommendations to other decision makers
- Apply a systematic decision-making process, which includes risk assessment, communication guidelines for how to share their evaluations, and the development of action plans for how to implement these decisions
- Effectively respond to decision making challenges or obstacles
Course Outline: A systematic approach for making decisions
Personal Assessment
- “How Good is Your Decision Making?”
Step 1: Create a Constructive Environment
- Stakeholder analysis
- Deciding how to decide and how much to involve other people
- The Vroom-Yetton-Jago Decision Model
- The Kepner-Tregoe Matrix for making unbiased, risk-assessed decisions
- Understanding the decision cycle
- Making decisions under pressure
- Avoiding GroupThink during team decision making
Step 2: Investigate the Situation in Detail
- Determining whether the stated problem is the real issue through Root Cause Analysis
- How to extract the greatest amount of information from what you know
- Using Inductive Reasoning to draw sound conclusions from the facts
- How to explore a problem from multiple perspectives to make sure that you are not missing important information
Step 3: Generate A Number of Good Alternatives
- Creativity/idea-generation tools
- Overcoming barriers to creativity
- Reverse Brainstorming
- Brainwriting
- Round-Robin Brainstorming for teams
- Using Random Input – how to make creative leaps with little actual information
- Considering how others outside your group might influence or be affected by a decision
- Reframing Matrix
- Perceptual Positions
Step 4: Explore Your Options
- How to evaluate feasibility, risks, and implications of each alternative
- Risk Analysis
- Risk Impact/Probability Chart
- ORAPAPA or Impact Analysis for considering the potential consequences of each option
- Starbursting to think about the questions you should ask to evaluate each option
- Cost-Benefits Analysis
Step 5: Select the Best Solution
- Decision Matrix Analysis for reliably and rigorously comparing options
- Decision Trees
- Reaching a Group Consensus for team decision making
- Deciding whether to go forward
- Go/No-Go Decisions
- What-If Analysis
Step 6: Evaluate Your Plan
- How to “sense check” your decision
- Considering common psychological biases in decision making
- Blindspot Analysis to assess whether common decision-making problems may have undermined the process
- The Ladder of Inference to avoid jumping to conclusions
- Decision making under uncertainty
- The impact of ethics and values on decision making
Step 7: Communicate Your Decision & Take Action
- How to assemble information from the decision-making process into a communication strategy
- Force Field Analysis
Up to 30 students
- Virtual Classes will be a live, Instructor lead class in Zoom for Government, a virtual technical assistant VTA will be available to assist students with any technical issues, take roll, administer evaluations, and distribute certificates of completion. Course materials will be provided electronically.
- Onsite classes will be held at your location. The instructor will travel to you. Materials will be printed and shipped to your site. A sign-up sheet will be provided for student to enter their name (as they want it on their certificate) and the email address to send the certificate to. GSA travel costs will be added to the course fee. Contact us for a travel estimate.
- A minimum of 2 weeks lead time is needed for virtual classes, 3 weeks for onsite classes.
Questions? Contact our training coordinator via email or phone at (202) 843.5447.
From Risk to Readiness: Scenario Planning as a Tool for Your Business
From Risk to Readiness: Scenario Planning as a Tool for Your Business
1 hour Live online or 1.5 hours In-person