Decision Management: How to Assure Better Decisions in Your Company

Rating:
Summary: A Must Read For Practising Managers
Review: The book is based on the premise that the performance (good or bad) of a Company is largely dependent on how (well or poorly) the people within the Company decide. Therefore, this book deals with the process of improving the manner in which people in the Company make decisions. This book is about how to assure better decisions.

Essentially, Decision Management includes all aspects that a Manager needs to take into account to improve the quality of a Company's decision. Decision Management involves four tasks or responsibilities viz, influencing specific decisions, supervising decision routines, shaping decision procedures and providing decision resources.

The four key drivers to ensure good Decision Management are to recognize Decision Management as a core managerial responsibility, have a proper understanding or appreciation of decision problems and processes, understand how people in the Company decide, and finally, to learn from decision-making principles that have emerged from research and practical experience.

Every decision problem poses ten fundamental or cardinal decision issues (this is the major theme of this book and 5 full Chapters, out of 9, have been devoted to this ) These are:
„«Need
„«Mode
„«Investment
„«Options
„«Possibilities
„«Judgement
„«Value
„«Tradeoffs
„«Acceptability
„«Implementation

This checklist is useful to carry around when one is evaluating or going through a decision making process to ensure that no issue is overlooked.

Overall a very practical book with lots of examples to convey the underlying issues. Practicing Managers, in particular, would find it quite useful.