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6
Decision-Making
Processes
Stewart L. Tubbs
McGraw-Hill

2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.

Slide 2

Decision-Making Processes

McGraw-Hill

Improving Creativity
Reflective Thinking Process
The Kepner-Tregoe Approach
The Fishbone Technique
Brainstorming
Six Thinking Hats
Incrementation
Mixed Scanning
Tacit Bargaining
2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Slide 3

Improving Creativity
Creative thinking is often characterized as
thinking outside the box.
Creativity can be divided into two phases of
thinking:
Divergent thinking
Convergent thinking

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2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Slide 4

Improving Creativity
Gibson and Hodgetts (1986) identify four
different kinds of creativity that may be
applied to group problem solving.

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Innovation
Synthesis
Extension
Duplication

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Slide 5

Improving Creativity
Left- and Right-Brain Functions

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2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Slide 6

Creative Decision-Making
Model of Decision-Making

Source: Reprinted with permission of the Free Press, a Division of Macmillan, Inc., from

McGraw-Hill David Braybrooke and Charles C. Lindbloom.

2009
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Companies,
Inc.All
rights
A The
Strategy
of Decision,
copyright
1963
by

Slide 7

Reflective Thinking Process

The reflective thinking process Dewey
(1910) emphasizes the left-brain functions.

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Define problem.
Analyze causes.
Identify criteria.
Generate solutions.
Choose best solution.
Implement solution.

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Slide 8

The Kepner-Tregoe Approach

The Kepner-Tregoe approach involves
identifying wants and musts.
The most important contribution seems to be the
way in which a group works through the criteria
phase.

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Slide 9

Fishbone Technique
SSC Ratings for Competing States

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Source: From Mike Magner. Geology Blamed for

2009
Theof
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Companies,
Inc. News,
All rights
States
Loss
Atom Smasher,
Ann Arbor
11

Slide 10

The Fishbone Technique

The Fishbone Technique is so called
because its outline resembles the skeleton of
a fish.
It helps to identify graphically the underlying
causes of a problem.

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Slide 11

Brainstorming
Brainstorming is a lateral thinking process.
Brainstorming encourages open and random
thinking and communications

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Slide 12

Brainstorming
Brainstorming emphasizes right-brain
activity.
Rules for brainstorming:

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Put judgment and evaluation aside temporarily.

Turn imagination loose, and start offering the results.
Think of as many ideas as you can.
Seek combination and improvement.
Record all ideas in full view.
Evaluate at a later session.

2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Slide 13

Brainstorming
Alternative Brainstorming Techniques
Random Input
Reframing
Professions approach
Provocation

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Slide 14

Brainstorming
Alternative Brainstorming Techniques
SCAMPER system
S=substitute
C=combine
A=adapt
M=modify
P=put to another use
E=eliminate
R=reverse

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Slide 15

Six Thinking Hats

Six thinking hats is an intuitive way to keep your thoughts
focused while problem solving.
1. White hatemotionally neutral.
2. Red hatemotions, gut instincts, intuition, and feelings.
3. Black hatrepresents careful and analytical thinking.
4. Yellow hatrepresents sunny, optimistic, and positive
thinking.
5. Green hatrepresents creativity, new ideas, alternatives,
and possibilities.
6. Blue hatrepresents coordination, control, and the
discipline to know when to use which hat.

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2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Slide 16

Incrementalism
Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963) argue that
many governmental policies are adopted
partially as a result of adapting to political
pressure rather than as a result of rational
analysis.

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Slide 17

Incrementalism
The term incrementalism refers to the
process of making decisions that result in
change.
Quadrant 1High understanding/large change
Quadrant 2High understanding/incremental
change
Quadrant 3Low understanding/incremental
change
Quadrant 4Low understanding/large change
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Slide 18

Mixed Scanning
Etzioni (1968) offers a decision-making
strategy that is a combination of reflective
thinking and incrementalism.
The ability to maintain a balance between
attention to the general and attention to the
specific appears to be a major factor in
successful problem solving.

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Slide 19

Tacit Bargaining
Murnighan (1992) refer to tacit bargaining
as bargaining in which communication is
incomplete or impossible.
People can cooperate fairly successfully in some
problem-solving situations if it is to their
advantage to do so.
Mixed-motive situationswhen there is
simultaneous pressure to cooperate and to compete
imply communication procedures that are distinctly
different from those in other problem-solving
situations.
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Slide 20

Virtual decision-making
The decision-making process in the virtual process is
a thoughtful and time-consuming process.
Online tools that help groups make decisions are
called decision support systems (DSS).

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Slide 21

Review of the Systems Approach

The decision-making process in most groups
can be improved.
The systems principle of equifinality is that
several alternative methods may be used to
reach the solution to the groups problem.
The appropriateness of any method will
depend on the demands of the specific
situation.
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2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights

Slide 22

Review of the Systems Approach

Rational problem-solving methods work
well but seem most suited to an autonomous
group trying to satisfy its own needs with a
democratic leader.
Tacit bargaining seems to be primarily
appropriate in mixed-motive situations.
The demands of the situation play a great
part in suggesting which problem-solving
strategy we want to employ.
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2009 The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights