Decision Making Game

Executive Summary

An effective decision making process not only lies in how successful it is but also in how you as the user can draw from other approaches and learn from them so that you might employ aspects into your own personal decision-making processes.

The purpose of this paper is to examine my personal decision making process that I used over the years; contrasting it the 'gaming' experience and see if there is area for change and improvement. Additionally, the fishbone diagram is a tool identifies to be added to my decision making process to support the investigative phase. This tool was selected because the Peer Network team reasoned that provided a systematic means of looking at the causes and effects that create or contribute to the problem.

The key recommendation is to interview individuals closest to the problem that will offer detailed information on the problem. Senior executive and managers have a vital role in the planning process but should be reviewed once the details are gathered and the need identified.

A resource this week is an interactive media simulation titled, "Management of Decision Making". The goal of the simulation is to reveal decision making approaches. This paper will explain my own personal decision making approach. Upon examination, this paper will explain how I might revise my approach based on the simulation and other tools or processes learned.

Decision Making Tool

The military decision making process (MDMP) is an approach that I have learned and used over the years. MDMP is an established and proven analytical process for problem solving. A tool used by military commanders and staff in developing estimates and plans, I learned as a young officer and used as a primary approach for decision making. Although this process is centered on military operations, the analytical aspects of MDMP can be applied to most decision making situations. As an Army officer this tool was used to examine military operations and reach logical decisions. As an Information Technology (IT) engineer, I've used the same problem-solving process to examine IT issues.

Change and Improvement

An advantage of using this process is its "detailed, deliberate, sequential, and time-consuming" approach (Major John D. Nawoichyk, 2008, p. 700-08-05). It is best applied when the user has sufficient support and adequate planning time available so that issues can be thoroughly examined. This leads me to the one disadvantage of this process; it is time-consuming.

This process is comprise characteristics similar to the 'discovery process' discussed in the article by Paul Nutt (Nutt, 2008). Like the discovery process, MDMP performs "intelligence gathering, implementation, and direction setting

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