Objectives:
• To provide students with contemporary knowledge and skills of decision-making strategies;
• To develop applicable skills which can be used pragmatically in organisations to support effective decision making;
• Develop quantitative research skills;
Instructions:
In groups of 4, each person is to write a case study of an area of indecision they are currently grappling with. As a group select one of the 4 to take forwards for submission in the assessment. Now resolve the case study issues with the person who owns the problem.
Reflect on how you have done this and develop an assessment rubric for group decision making practice. Reference theory in your rubric through the use of footnotes to compile a reference list. NOTE: The rubric is for the group process of resolving the problem, it is not about the problem and/or its solution in itself.
Output/Deliverable:
Submit an assessment/marking rubric as a table similar to the one attached to this brief but for the purpose of assessing group decision making process. There should be footnotes referring the theory to the criteria in the rubric and list of references to support the rubric. At a minimum have 3 differential positions - poor decision making process, ok decision making process and good decision making process to differentiate the criteria in order to demonstrate that you understand what good and poor process looks like.
Learning Outcomes
• Select and evaluate the usefulness of a range of decision making tools and reflect on your decision making styles and contrast with other styles and determine the respective levels of rationality and intuition utilised.
• Evaluate the benefits, weaknesses and complexities inherent in group decision making and examine a range of effective group decision-making techniques.
• Examine decision-making systems and techniques to engage organisational intelligence and analyse how these can enhance entrepreneurial outcomes.
• Compare, contrast and critically evaluate sources of data as influences for decision-making in a range of business contexts.
Decision Making Scenario
The role and importance of decision making is quite crucial in every organisation because it is the relevant and timely decisions that allow organisations in accomplishing success. There are various important factors that are essential to consider while making appropriate decisions. The most important ones are mainly in the form of taking correct decision that addresses the problem and also ensuring that taking timely decision is crucial because if it is not taken within time, it will be of no such importance. As decision making is importance, in respect to my organisation, there have been certain major inefficiencies noted in this regard. The organisation that I am working was started as a smaller one with few employees. Since it was a new organisation, the customer database was small and all the work was undertaken on manual basis. There was no any such requirement for IT system which could unnecessary increases cost.
However, the products sold by my organisation was increasingly innovative and there has been significant such demand being witnessed for the same in the first few months. The product was initially sold to the retail end consumers but looking at its innovativeness and newness, there has been increasing level of demand that the organisation is started receiving from whole sale consumers. Within months, the management has witnessed significant rise in the demand, and as a result, there has been the expansion of existing production line being carried out. New products that could associate well with the existing product lines are being considered and this has resulted into increased level of diversity in respect to the product offerings. The customers' database has increased significantly and there has also been an increase in the number of products in the existing product portfolio (Shapira, 2002).
With such massive growth being increased in the performance of organisation, an area that lacked decision making was to enhance the overall processes of the organisation to efficiently address the rapid expansion and growth that is witnessed by the organisation. With number of suppliers increased and also the increase in the category of items, management has started facing difficulties in performing the management of existing organisational processes. There were issues identified especially in respect to managing customer orders, managing adequate supplies to cover up the customer needs, delays in payment to employees leading to their dissatisfaction and many more. (Shapira, 2002).
The overall performance level have started facing difficulties and it is realised by management that they need to make changes to efficiently address the growth and development that their business is facing. Since there has not been any decision considered, it has resulted into significant losses to the organisation in terms of higher level of customer dissatisfaction. This has resulted into loss customer sale and there has been decline in the overall reputation of the organisation being faced. The suppliers were not paid on time and this has resulted into inefficient relations with them. There has been overall level of decline being faced and the most important reason that contributed to such decline is the inability of the management to undertake the best possible decision in addressing the growing level of expansion (Roth and Mullen, 2002).
The role and importance of decision making is identified later by the management and they have realised that they need to make appropriate decisions in advance concerning the changes to their existing processes because of rapid level of expansion being identified in their performance. The processes were still the manual one and they have caused delays in respect to all the areas of organisation's operations. There have been delays identified in responding to customer requests and ultimately leading to delays in delivering their order. This ultimately leads to customer dissatisfaction and adverse impact on organisation's performance. The employees were also dissatisfied because of it and this is the reason that the situation warranted an immediate decision on the part of management (Shapira, 2002).
There could have been decision possible in the form of consideration of an appropriate IT system that could have allowed for managing the expanded operation of the organisation in a positive manner. However, there is no such decision being considered by the management and the resulting impact is identified as major loss of reputation and performance of the organisation. The analysis indicated the importance of decision making, as correct and timely decisions could have resulted into efficient overall performance of the organisation's expansion process and there could have been incremental growth and development that could have been possible to the entire organisation in its performance (Roth and Mullen, 2002).
References-
Roth, B.M. and Mullen, J.D. (2002). Decision Making: Its Logic and Practice. Rowman & Littlefield.
Shapira, Z. (2002). Organizational Decision Making. Cambridge University Press.