Decision Making

Only available as an in-house course

Good decisions are the hallmark of effective management and leadership. This four-day course has been designed to help professionals of all backgrounds improve decision making in work and life. The course begins by elaborating on the many types of decisions they are likely to confront, as well as the many tools they can use to analyse or test the options available to them. The course goes on to explore how to improve decision making in the wider organisation.

Request in-house course

Course Outline

Understanding Decisions

Decision Types

  • Reversible vs. irreversible
  • Programmed vs. non-programmed
  • Authority vs. consultative decisions
  • Analytically vs. organizationally complex
  • Strategic, tactical, operational

Decision Styles

  • Structured vs. unstructured decisions
  • Intuitive vs. deliberative
  • Authoritative vs consultative
  • Individual vs. group

Decision Challenges

  • Stakeholder-related challenges
  • Cultures and paradigms
  • Decision-related data and knowledge
  • Decision ethics
  • The will to action
  • Ensuring decision quality

Decision Analysis

What is Decision Analysis?

  • Historical and theoretical overview
  • A taxonomy of approaches
  • Barriers to effective decision analysis
  • Decision analysis vs. decision making

Decision Analysis Techniques

  • Cost Benefit Analysis
  • Decision Tree Analysis
  • Force Field Analysis
  • Grid Analysis / Decision Matrix
  • Structured Comparison
  • Paired Comparison Analysis
  • Regret Analysis
  • Robust Decision Making

Challenge Analysis

  • Assumptions Surfacing
  • Potential Problem Analysis
  • Bullet Proofing
  • The Pyramid of Purpose
  • What if Analysis
  • Pre-mortem Analysis

The Process of Decision Making

Prerequisites

  • Identifying your purpose and values
  • Choosing the right decision approach
  • Evaluating stakeholder perspectives

The Decision Making Processes

  • The features of a good decision process
  • Specifying your decision frame
  • Identifying decision objectives
  • Identifying decision alternatives
  • Decision timing
  • Identifying decision-related fears
  • Risk and contingency management
  • Common decision errors
  • Evaluating decision quality

Decision Making in Organisations

Working with Stakeholders

  • Identifying decision-related stakeholders
  • Analysing stakeholder responses
  • Lewin’s Force Field Analysis Model
  • Managing stakeholder engagement

From Decisions to Action

  • Communicating decisions
  • Implementing decisions
  • Monitoring implementation
  • Reviewing outcomes
  • Learning from decision errors
  • Making the “wrong” decision right
Request in-house course

Course Benefits

On completion of this course, participants will have acquired the ability to:

  • Orient themselves to the range of decisions they are expected to make
  • Employ a broad range of decision analysis techniques
  • Use challenge analysis to scrutinise and improve the decisions of others
  • Enhance decision-related processes in the workplace
  • Evaluate the process of decision-making, as well as its outputs and outcomes

Course Requirements

Participants are required to bring a laptop with them and to set up a Gmail and Twitter account if they do not already have one.