decision making and problem solving quizlet

• Bipolar Disorder
• Therapy Center
• When To See a Therapist
• Types of Therapy
• Best Online Therapy
• Best Couples Therapy
• Best Family Therapy
• Managing Stress
• Sleep and Dreaming
• Understanding Emotions
• Self-Improvement
• Healthy Relationships
• Student Resources
• Personality Types
• Guided Meditations
• Verywell Mind Insights
• 2024 Verywell Mind 25
• Mental Health in the Classroom
• Editorial Process
• Meet Our Review Board
• Crisis Support

Problem-Solving Strategies and Obstacles

Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Sean is a fact-checker and researcher with experience in sociology, field research, and data analytics.

JGI / Jamie Grill / Getty Images

• Application
• Improvement

From deciding what to eat for dinner to considering whether it's the right time to buy a house, problem-solving is a large part of our daily lives. Learn some of the problem-solving strategies that exist and how to use them in real life, along with ways to overcome obstacles that are making it harder to resolve the issues you face.

What Is Problem-Solving?

In cognitive psychology , the term 'problem-solving' refers to the mental process that people go through to discover, analyze, and solve problems.

A problem exists when there is a goal that we want to achieve but the process by which we will achieve it is not obvious to us. Put another way, there is something that we want to occur in our life, yet we are not immediately certain how to make it happen.

Maybe you want a better relationship with your spouse or another family member but you're not sure how to improve it. Or you want to start a business but are unsure what steps to take. Problem-solving helps you figure out how to achieve these desires.

The problem-solving process involves:

• Discovery of the problem
• Deciding to tackle the issue
• Seeking to understand the problem more fully
• Researching available options or solutions
• Taking action to resolve the issue

Before problem-solving can occur, it is important to first understand the exact nature of the problem itself. If your understanding of the issue is faulty, your attempts to resolve it will also be incorrect or flawed.

Problem-Solving Mental Processes

Several mental processes are at work during problem-solving. Among them are:

• Perceptually recognizing the problem
• Representing the problem in memory
• Considering relevant information that applies to the problem
• Identifying different aspects of the problem
• Labeling and describing the problem

Problem-Solving Strategies

There are many ways to go about solving a problem. Some of these strategies might be used on their own, or you may decide to employ multiple approaches when working to figure out and fix a problem.

An algorithm is a step-by-step procedure that, by following certain "rules" produces a solution. Algorithms are commonly used in mathematics to solve division or multiplication problems. But they can be used in other fields as well.

In psychology, algorithms can be used to help identify individuals with a greater risk of mental health issues. For instance, research suggests that certain algorithms might help us recognize children with an elevated risk of suicide or self-harm.

One benefit of algorithms is that they guarantee an accurate answer. However, they aren't always the best approach to problem-solving, in part because detecting patterns can be incredibly time-consuming.

There are also concerns when machine learning is involved—also known as artificial intelligence (AI)—such as whether they can accurately predict human behaviors.

Heuristics are shortcut strategies that people can use to solve a problem at hand. These "rule of thumb" approaches allow you to simplify complex problems, reducing the total number of possible solutions to a more manageable set.

If you find yourself sitting in a traffic jam, for example, you may quickly consider other routes, taking one to get moving once again. When shopping for a new car, you might think back to a prior experience when negotiating got you a lower price, then employ the same tactics.

While heuristics may be helpful when facing smaller issues, major decisions shouldn't necessarily be made using a shortcut approach. Heuristics also don't guarantee an effective solution, such as when trying to drive around a traffic jam only to find yourself on an equally crowded route.

Trial and Error

A trial-and-error approach to problem-solving involves trying a number of potential solutions to a particular issue, then ruling out those that do not work. If you're not sure whether to buy a shirt in blue or green, for instance, you may try on each before deciding which one to purchase.

This can be a good strategy to use if you have a limited number of solutions available. But if there are many different choices available, narrowing down the possible options using another problem-solving technique can be helpful before attempting trial and error.

In some cases, the solution to a problem can appear as a sudden insight. You are facing an issue in a relationship or your career when, out of nowhere, the solution appears in your mind and you know exactly what to do.

Insight can occur when the problem in front of you is similar to an issue that you've dealt with in the past. Although, you may not recognize what is occurring since the underlying mental processes that lead to insight often happen outside of conscious awareness .

Research indicates that insight is most likely to occur during times when you are alone—such as when going on a walk by yourself, when you're in the shower, or when lying in bed after waking up.

How to Apply Problem-Solving Strategies in Real Life

If you're facing a problem, you can implement one or more of these strategies to find a potential solution. Here's how to use them in real life:

• Create a flow chart . If you have time, you can take advantage of the algorithm approach to problem-solving by sitting down and making a flow chart of each potential solution, its consequences, and what happens next.
• Recall your past experiences . When a problem needs to be solved fairly quickly, heuristics may be a better approach. Think back to when you faced a similar issue, then use your knowledge and experience to choose the best option possible.
• Start trying potential solutions . If your options are limited, start trying them one by one to see which solution is best for achieving your desired goal. If a particular solution doesn't work, move on to the next.
• Take some time alone . Since insight is often achieved when you're alone, carve out time to be by yourself for a while. The answer to your problem may come to you, seemingly out of the blue, if you spend some time away from others.

Obstacles to Problem-Solving

Problem-solving is not a flawless process as there are a number of obstacles that can interfere with our ability to solve a problem quickly and efficiently. These obstacles include:

• Assumptions: When dealing with a problem, people can make assumptions about the constraints and obstacles that prevent certain solutions. Thus, they may not even try some potential options.
• Functional fixedness : This term refers to the tendency to view problems only in their customary manner. Functional fixedness prevents people from fully seeing all of the different options that might be available to find a solution.
• Irrelevant or misleading information: When trying to solve a problem, it's important to distinguish between information that is relevant to the issue and irrelevant data that can lead to faulty solutions. The more complex the problem, the easier it is to focus on misleading or irrelevant information.
• Mental set: A mental set is a tendency to only use solutions that have worked in the past rather than looking for alternative ideas. A mental set can work as a heuristic, making it a useful problem-solving tool. However, mental sets can also lead to inflexibility, making it more difficult to find effective solutions.

How to Improve Your Problem-Solving Skills

In the end, if your goal is to become a better problem-solver, it's helpful to remember that this is a process. Thus, if you want to improve your problem-solving skills, following these steps can help lead you to your solution:

• Recognize that a problem exists . If you are facing a problem, there are generally signs. For instance, if you have a mental illness , you may experience excessive fear or sadness, mood changes, and changes in sleeping or eating habits. Recognizing these signs can help you realize that an issue exists.
• Decide to solve the problem . Make a conscious decision to solve the issue at hand. Commit to yourself that you will go through the steps necessary to find a solution.
• Seek to fully understand the issue . Analyze the problem you face, looking at it from all sides. If your problem is relationship-related, for instance, ask yourself how the other person may be interpreting the issue. You might also consider how your actions might be contributing to the situation.
• Research potential options . Using the problem-solving strategies mentioned, research potential solutions. Make a list of options, then consider each one individually. What are some pros and cons of taking the available routes? What would you need to do to make them happen?
• Take action . Select the best solution possible and take action. Action is one of the steps required for change . So, go through the motions needed to resolve the issue.
• Try another option, if needed . If the solution you chose didn't work, don't give up. Either go through the problem-solving process again or simply try another option.

You can find a way to solve your problems as long as you keep working toward this goal—even if the best solution is simply to let go because no other good solution exists.

Sarathy V. Real world problem-solving .  Front Hum Neurosci . 2018;12:261. doi:10.3389/fnhum.2018.00261

Dunbar K. Problem solving . A Companion to Cognitive Science . 2017. doi:10.1002/9781405164535.ch20

Stewart SL, Celebre A, Hirdes JP, Poss JW. Risk of suicide and self-harm in kids: The development of an algorithm to identify high-risk individuals within the children's mental health system . Child Psychiat Human Develop . 2020;51:913-924. doi:10.1007/s10578-020-00968-9

Rosenbusch H, Soldner F, Evans AM, Zeelenberg M. Supervised machine learning methods in psychology: A practical introduction with annotated R code . Soc Personal Psychol Compass . 2021;15(2):e12579. doi:10.1111/spc3.12579

Mishra S. Decision-making under risk: Integrating perspectives from biology, economics, and psychology . Personal Soc Psychol Rev . 2014;18(3):280-307. doi:10.1177/1088868314530517

Csikszentmihalyi M, Sawyer K. Creative insight: The social dimension of a solitary moment . In: The Systems Model of Creativity . 2015:73-98. doi:10.1007/978-94-017-9085-7_7

Chrysikou EG, Motyka K, Nigro C, Yang SI, Thompson-Schill SL. Functional fixedness in creative thinking tasks depends on stimulus modality .  Psychol Aesthet Creat Arts . 2016;10(4):425‐435. doi:10.1037/aca0000050

Huang F, Tang S, Hu Z. Unconditional perseveration of the short-term mental set in chunk decomposition .  Front Psychol . 2018;9:2568. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2018.02568

National Alliance on Mental Illness. Warning signs and symptoms .

Mayer RE. Thinking, problem solving, cognition, 2nd ed .

Schooler JW, Ohlsson S, Brooks K. Thoughts beyond words: When language overshadows insight. J Experiment Psychol: General . 1993;122:166-183. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.2.166

By Kendra Cherry, MSEd Kendra Cherry, MS, is a psychosocial rehabilitation specialist, psychology educator, and author of the "Everything Psychology Book."

Want to create or adapt books like this? Learn more about how Pressbooks supports open publishing practices.

11.3 Understanding Decision Making

Learning objectives.

• Define decision making.
• Understand different types of decisions.

What Is Decision Making?

Decision making refers to making choices among alternative courses of action—which may also include inaction. While it can be argued that management is decision making, half of the decisions made by managers within organizations fail (Ireland & Miller, 2004; Nutt, 2002; Nutt, 1999). Therefore, increasing effectiveness in decision making is an important part of maximizing your effectiveness at work. This chapter will help you understand how to make decisions alone or in a group while avoiding common decision-making traps.

Individuals throughout organizations use the information they gather to make a wide range of decisions. These decisions may affect the lives of others and change the course of an organization. For example, the decisions made by executives and consulting firms for Enron ultimately resulted in a $60 billion loss for investors, thousands of employees without jobs, and the loss of all employee retirement funds. But Sherron Watkins, a former Enron employee and now-famous whistleblower, uncovered the accounting problems and tried to enact change. Similarly, the decisions made by firms to trade in mortgage-backed securities is having negative consequences for the entire U.S. economy. Each of these people made a decision, and each person, as well as others, is now living with the consequences of his or her decisions.

Because many decisions involve an ethical component, one of the most important considerations in management is whether the decisions you are making as an employee or manager are ethical. Here are some basic questions you can ask yourself to assess the ethics of a decision (Blanchard & Peale, 1988).

• Is this decision fair?
• Will I feel better or worse about myself after I make this decision?
• Does this decision break any organizational rules?
• Does this decision break any laws?
• How would I feel if this decision was broadcast on the news?

Types of Decisions

Despite the far-reaching nature of the decisions in the previous example, not all decisions have major consequences or even require a lot of thought. For example, before you come to class, you make simple and habitual decisions such as what to wear, what to eat, and which route to take as you go to and from home and school. You probably do not spend much time on these mundane decisions. These types of straightforward decisions are termed programmed decisions; these are decisions that occur frequently enough that we develop an automated response to them. The automated response we use to make these decisions is called the decision rule . For example, many restaurants face customer complaints as a routine part of doing business. Because this is a recurring problem for restaurants, it may be regarded as a programmed decision. To deal with this problem, the restaurant might have a policy stating that every time they receive a valid customer complaint, the customer should receive a free dessert, which represents a decision rule. Making strategic, tactical, and operational decisions is an integral part of the planning function in the P-O-L-C (planning-organizing-leading-controlling) model.

However, decisions that are unique and important require conscious thinking, information gathering, and careful consideration of alternatives. These are called nonprogrammed decisions . For example, in 2005, McDonald’s became aware of a need to respond to growing customer concerns regarding foods high in fat and calories. This is a nonprogrammed decision because for several decades, customers of fast-food restaurants were more concerned with the taste and price of the food, rather than the healthiness. In response, McDonald’s decided to offer healthier alternatives, such as substituting apple slices in Happy Meals for French fries and discontinuing the use of trans fats. A crisis situation also constitutes a nonprogrammed decision for companies. For example, the leadership of Nutrorim was facing a tough decision. They had recently introduced a new product, ChargeUp with Lipitrene, an improved version of their popular sports drink powder, ChargeUp. But a phone call came from a state health department to inform them that several cases of gastrointestinal distress had been reported after people consumed the new product. Nutrorim decided to recall ChargeUp with Lipitrene immediately. Two weeks later, it became clear that the gastrointestinal problems were unrelated to ChargeUp with Lipitrene. However, the damage to the brand and to the balance sheets was already done. This unfortunate decision caused Nutrorim to rethink the way decisions were made under pressure so that they now gather information to make informed choices even when time is of the essence (Garvin, 2006).

Figure 11.5

To ensure consistency around the globe such as at this St. Petersburg, Russia, location, McDonald’s trains all restaurant managers (over 65,000 so far) at Hamburger University where they take the equivalent of two years of college courses and learn how to make decisions. The curriculum is taught in 28 languages.

Wikimedia Commons – McDonalds in St Petersburg 2004 – CC BY-SA 1.0.

Decision making can also be classified into three categories based on the level at which they occur. Strategic decisions set the course of organization. Tactical decisions are decisions about how things will get done. Finally, operational decisions are decisions that employees make each day to run the organization. For example, remember the restaurant that routinely offers a free dessert when a customer complaint is received. The owner of the restaurant made a strategic decision to have great customer service. The manager of the restaurant implemented the free dessert policy as a way to handle customer complaints, which is a tactical decision. And, the servers at the restaurant are making individual decisions each day evaluating whether each customer complaint received is legitimate to warrant a free dessert.

Figure 11.6 Decisions Commonly Made within Organizations

In this chapter, we are going to discuss different decision-making models designed to understand and evaluate the effectiveness of nonprogrammed decisions. We will cover four decision-making approaches starting with the rational decision-making model, moving to the bounded rationality decision-making model, the intuitive decision-making model, and ending with the creative decision-making model.

Making Rational Decisions

The rational decision-making model describes a series of steps that decision makers should consider if their goal is to maximize the quality of their outcomes. In other words, if you want to make sure you make the best choice, going through the formal steps of the rational decision-making model may make sense.

Let’s imagine that your old, clunky car has broken down and you have enough money saved for a substantial down payment on a new car. It is the first major purchase of your life, and you want to make the right choice. The first step, therefore, has already been completed—we know that you want to buy a new car. Next, in step 2, you’ll need to decide which factors are important to you. How many passengers do you want to accommodate? How important is fuel economy to you? Is safety a major concern? You only have a certain amount of money saved, and you don’t want to take on too much debt, so price range is an important factor as well. If you know you want to have room for at least five adults, get at least 20 miles per gallon, drive a car with a strong safety rating, not spend more than $22,000 on the purchase, and like how it looks, you’ve identified the decision criteria. All of the potential options for purchasing your car will be evaluated against these criteria.

Figure 11.7

Using the rational decision-making model to make major purchases can help avoid making poor choices.

Lars Plougmann – Headshift business card discussion – CC BY-SA 2.0.

Before we can move too much further, you need to decide how important each factor is to your decision in step 3. If each is equally important, then there is no need to weight them, but if you know that price and gas mileage are key factors, you might weight them heavily and keep the other criteria with medium importance. Step 4 requires you to generate all alternatives about your options. Then, in step 5, you need to use this information to evaluate each alternative against the criteria you have established. You choose the best alternative (step 6) and you go out and buy your new car (step 7).

Of course, the outcome of this decision will be related to the next decision made; that is where the evaluation in step 8 comes in. For example, if you purchase a car but have nothing but problems with it, you are unlikely to consider the same make and model in purchasing another car the next time!

Figure 11.8 Steps in the Rational Decision-Making Model

While decision makers can get off track during any of these steps, research shows that limiting the search for alternatives in the fourth step can be the most challenging and lead to failure. In fact, one researcher found that no alternative generation occurred in 85% of the decisions studied (Nutt, 1994). Conversely, successful managers are clear about what they want at the outset of the decision-making process, set objectives for others to respond to, carry out an unrestricted search for solutions, get key people to participate, and avoid using their power to push their perspective (Nutt, 1998).

The rational decision-making model has important lessons for decision makers. First, when making a decision you may want to make sure that you establish your decision criteria before you search for all alternatives. This would prevent you from liking one option too much and setting your criteria accordingly. For example, let’s say you started browsing for cars before you decided your decision criteria. You may come across a car that you think really reflects your sense of style and make an emotional bond with the car. Then, because of your love for this car, you may say to yourself that the fuel economy of the car and the innovative braking system are the most important criteria. After purchasing it, you may realize that the car is too small for all of your friends to ride in the back seat when you and your brother are sitting in front, which was something you should have thought about! Setting criteria before you search for alternatives may prevent you from making such mistakes. Another advantage of the rational model is that it urges decision makers to generate all alternatives instead of only a few. By generating a large number of alternatives that cover a wide range of possibilities, you are likely to make a more effective decision in which you do not need to sacrifice one criterion for the sake of another.

Despite all its benefits, you may have noticed that this decision-making model involves a number of unrealistic assumptions. It assumes that people understand what decision is to be made, that they know all their available choices, that they have no perceptual biases, and that they want to make optimal decisions. Nobel Prize–winning economist Herbert Simon observed that while the rational decision-making model may be a helpful tool for working through problems, it doesn’t represent how decisions are frequently made within organizations. In fact, Simon argued that it didn’t even come close!

Think about how you make important decisions in your life. Our guess is that you rarely sit down and complete all eight steps in the rational decision-making model. For example, this model proposed that we should search for all possible alternatives before making a decision, but this can be time consuming and individuals are often under time pressure to make decisions. Moreover, even if we had access to all the information, it could be challenging to compare the pros and cons of each alternative and rank them according to our preferences. Anyone who has recently purchased a new laptop computer or cell phone can attest to the challenge of sorting through the different strengths and limitations of each brand, model, and plans offered for support and arriving at the solution that best meets their needs.

In fact, the availability of too much information can lead to analysis paralysis , where more and more time is spent on gathering information and thinking about it, but no decisions actually get made. A senior executive at Hewlett-Packard admits that his company suffered from this spiral of analyzing things for too long to the point where data gathering led to “not making decisions, instead of us making decisions (Zell, et. al., 2007).” Moreover, you may not always be interested in reaching an optimal decision. For example, if you are looking to purchase a house, you may be willing and able to invest a great deal of time and energy to find your dream house, but if you are looking for an apartment to rent for the academic year, you may be willing to take the first one that meets your criteria of being clean, close to campus, and within your price range.

Making “Good Enough” Decisions

The bounded rationality model of decision making recognizes the limitations of our decision-making processes. According to this model, individuals knowingly limit their options to a manageable set and choose the best alternative without conducting an exhaustive search for alternatives. An important part of the bounded rationality approach is the tendency to satisfice , which refers to accepting the first alternative that meets your minimum criteria. For example, many college graduates do not conduct a national or international search for potential job openings; instead, they focus their search on a limited geographic area and tend to accept the first offer in their chosen area, even if it may not be the ideal job situation. Satisficing is similar to rational decision making, but it differs in that rather than choosing the best choice and maximizing the potential outcome, the decision maker saves time and effort by accepting the first alternative that meets the minimum threshold.

Making Intuitive Decisions

The intuitive decision-making model has emerged as an important decision-making model. It refers to arriving at decisions without conscious reasoning. Eighty-nine percent of managers surveyed admitted to using intuition to make decisions at least sometimes, and 59% said they used intuition often (Burke & Miller, 1999). When we recognize that managers often need to make decisions under challenging circumstances with time pressures, constraints, a great deal of uncertainty, highly visible and high-stakes outcomes, and within changing conditions, it makes sense that they would not have the time to formally work through all the steps of the rational decision-making model. Yet when CEOs, financial analysts, and healthcare workers are asked about the critical decisions they make, seldom do they attribute success to luck. To an outside observer, it may seem like they are making guesses as to the course of action to take, but it turns out that they are systematically making decisions using a different model than was earlier suspected. Research on life-or-death decisions made by fire chiefs, pilots, and nurses finds that these experts do not choose among a list of well-thought-out alternatives. They don’t decide between two or three options and choose the best one. Instead, they consider only one option at a time. The intuitive decision-making model argues that, in a given situation, experts making decisions scan the environment for cues to recognize patterns (Breen, 2000; Klein, 2003; Salas & Klein, 2001). Once a pattern is recognized, they can play a potential course of action through to its outcome based on their prior experience. Due to training, experience, and knowledge, these decision makers have an idea of how well a given solution may work. If they run through the mental model and find that the solution will not work, they alter the solution and retest it before setting it into action. If it still is not deemed a workable solution, it is discarded as an option and a new idea is tested until a workable solution is found. Once a viable course of action is identified, the decision maker puts the solution into motion. The key point is that only one choice is considered at a time. Novices are not able to make effective decisions this way because they do not have enough prior experience to draw upon.

Making Creative Decisions

In addition to the rational decision making, bounded rationality models, and intuitive decision making, creative decision making is a vital part of being an effective decision maker. Creativity is the generation of new, imaginative ideas. With the flattening of organizations and intense competition among organizations, individuals and organizations are driven to be creative in decisions ranging from cutting costs to creating new ways of doing business. Please note that, while creativity is the first step in the innovation process, creativity and innovation are not the same thing. Innovation begins with creative ideas, but it also involves realistic planning and follow-through.

The five steps to creative decision making are similar to the previous decision-making models in some keys ways. All of the models include problem identification , which is the step in which the need for problem solving becomes apparent. If you do not recognize that you have a problem, it is impossible to solve it. Immersion is the step in which the decision maker thinks about the problem consciously and gathers information. A key to success in creative decision making is having or acquiring expertise in the area being studied. Then, incubation occurs. During incubation, the individual sets the problem aside and does not think about it for a while. At this time, the brain is actually working on the problem unconsciously. Then comes illumination or the insight moment, when the solution to the problem becomes apparent to the person, usually when it is least expected. This is the “eureka” moment similar to what happened to the ancient Greek inventor Archimedes, who found a solution to the problem he was working on while he was taking a bath. Finally, the verification and application stage happens when the decision maker consciously verifies the feasibility of the solution and implements the decision.

A NASA scientist describes his decision-making process leading to a creative outcome as follows: He had been trying to figure out a better way to de-ice planes to make the process faster and safer. After recognizing the problem, he had immersed himself in the literature to understand all the options, and he worked on the problem for months trying to figure out a solution. It was not until he was sitting outside of a McDonald’s restaurant with his grandchildren that it dawned on him. The golden arches of the “M” of the McDonald’s logo inspired his solution: he would design the de-icer as a series of M’s! 1 This represented the illumination stage. After he tested and verified his creative solution, he was done with that problem except to reflect on the outcome and process.

Figure 11.9 The Creative Decision-Making Process

How Do You Know If Your Decision-Making Process Is Creative?

Researchers focus on three factors to evaluate the level of creativity in the decision-making process. Fluency refers to the number of ideas a person is able to generate. Flexibility refers to how different the ideas are from one another. If you are able to generate several distinct solutions to a problem, your decision-making process is high on flexibility. Originality refers to an idea’s uniqueness. You might say that Reed Hastings, founder and CEO of Netflix, is a pretty creative person. His decision-making process shows at least two elements of creativity. We do not exactly know how many ideas he had over the course of his career, but his ideas are fairly different from one another. After teaching math in Africa with the Peace Corps, Hastings was accepted at Stanford University, where he earned a master’s degree in computer science. Soon after starting work at a software company, he invented a successful debugging tool, which led to his founding the computer troubleshooting company Pure Software in 1991. After a merger and the subsequent sale of the resulting company in 1997, Hastings founded Netflix, which revolutionized the DVD rental business through online rentals with no late fees. In 2007, Hastings was elected to Microsoft’s board of directors. As you can see, his ideas are high in originality and flexibility (Conlin, 2007).

Figure 11.10 Dimensions of Creativity

Some experts have proposed that creativity occurs as an interaction among three factors: (1) people’s personality traits (openness to experience, risk taking), (2) their attributes (expertise, imagination, motivation), and (3) the context (encouragement from others, time pressure, and physical structures) (Amabile, 1988; Amabile, et. al., 1996; Ford & Gioia, 2000; Tierney, et. al., 1999; Woodman, et. al., 1993). For example, research shows that individuals who are open to experience, are less conscientious, more self-accepting, and more impulsive, tend to be more creative (Feist, 1998).

There are many techniques available that enhance and improve creativity. Linus Pauling, the Nobel prize winner who popularized the idea that vitamin C could help build the immunity system, said, “The best way to have a good idea is to have a lot of ideas.” One popular way to generate ideas is to use brainstorming. Brainstorming is a group process of generated ideas that follows a set of guidelines that include no criticism of ideas during the brainstorming process, the idea that no suggestion is too crazy, and building on other ideas (piggybacking). Research shows that the quantity of ideas actually leads to better idea quality in the end, so setting high idea quotas where the group must reach a set number of ideas before they are done, is recommended to avoid process loss and to maximize the effectiveness of brainstorming. Another unique aspect of brainstorming is that the more people are included in brainstorming, the better the decision outcome will be because the variety of backgrounds and approaches give the group more to draw from. A variation of brainstorming is wildstorming where the group focuses on ideas that are impossible and then imagines what would need to happen to make them possible (Scott, et. al., 2004).

Ideas for Enhancing Organizational Creativity

We have seen that organizational creativity is vital to organizations. Here are some guidelines for enhancing organizational creativity within teams (Amabile, 1998; Gundry, et. al., 1994; Keith, 2008; Pearsall, et. al., 2008; Thompson, 2003).

Team Composition (Organizing/Leading)

• Diversify your team to give them more inputs to build on and more opportunities to create functional conflict while avoiding personal conflict.
• Change group membership to stimulate new ideas and new interaction patterns.
• Leaderless teams can allow teams freedom to create without trying to please anyone up front.

Team Process (Leading)

• Engage in brainstorming to generate ideas—remember to set a high goal for the number of ideas the group should come up with, encourage wild ideas, and take brainwriting breaks.
• Use the nominal group technique in person or electronically to avoid some common group process pitfalls. Consider anonymous feedback as well.
• Use analogies to envision problems and solutions.

Leadership (Leading)

• Challenge teams so that they are engaged but not overwhelmed.
• Let people decide how to achieve goals , rather than telling them what goals to achieve.
• Support and celebrate creativity even when it leads to a mistake. But set up processes to learn from mistakes as well.
• Model creative behavior.

Culture (Organizing)

• Institute organizational memory so that individuals do not spend time on routine tasks.
• Build a physical space conducive to creativity that is playful and humorous—this is a place where ideas can thrive.
• Incorporate creative behavior into the performance appraisal process.

And finally, avoiding groupthink can be an important skill to learn (Janis, 1972).

The four different decision-making models—rational, bounded rationality, intuitive, and creative—vary in terms of how experienced or motivated a decision maker is to make a choice. Choosing the right approach will make you more effective at work and improve your ability to carry out all the P-O-L-C functions.

Figure 11.11

Which decision-making model should I use?

Key Takeaway

Decision making is choosing among alternative courses of action, including inaction. There are different types of decisions, ranging from automatic, programmed decisions to more intensive nonprogrammed decisions. Structured decision-making processes include rational decision making, bounded rationality, intuitive, and creative decision making. Each of these can be useful, depending on the circumstances and the problem that needs to be solved.

• What do you see as the main difference between a successful and an unsuccessful decision? How much does luck versus skill have to do with it? How much time needs to pass to answer the first question?
• Research has shown that over half of the decisions made within organizations fail. Does this surprise you? Why or why not?
• Have you used the rational decision-making model to make a decision? What was the context? How well did the model work?
• Share an example of a decision where you used satisficing. Were you happy with the outcome? Why or why not? When would you be most likely to engage in satisficing?
• Do you think intuition is respected as a decision-making style? Do you think it should be? Why or why not?

1 Interview by author Talya Bauer at Ames Research Center, Mountain View, CA, 1990.

Amabile, T. M. (1988). A model of creativity and innovation in organizations. In B. M. Staw & L. L. Cummings (Eds.), Research in Organizational Behavior, 10 123–167 Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Amabile, T. M., Conti, R., Coon, H., Lazenby, J., & Herron, M. (1996). Assessing the work environment for creativity. Academy of Management Journal, 39 , 1154–1184.

Amabile, T. M. (1998). How to kill creativity. Harvard Business Review, 76 , 76–87.

Blanchard, K., & Peale, N. V. (1988). The power of ethical management . New York: William Morrow.

Breen, B. (2000, August), “What’s your intuition?” Fast Company , 290.

Burke, L. A., & Miller, M. K. (1999). Taking the mystery out of intuitive decision making. Academy of Management Executive, 13 , 91–98.

Conlin, M. (2007, September 14). Netflix: Recruiting and retaining the best talent. Business Week Online . Retrieved March 1, 2008, from http://www.businessweek.com/managing/content/sep2007/ca20070913_564868.htm?campaign_id=rss_null .

Feist, G. J. (1998). A meta-analysis of personality in scientific and artistic creativity. Personality and Social Psychology Review, 2 , 290–309.

Ford, C. M., & Gioia, D. A. (2000). Factors influencing creativity in the domain of managerial decision making. Journal of Management, 26 , 705–732.

Garvin, D. A. (2006, January). All the wrong moves. Harvard Business Review , 18–23.

Gundry, L. K., Kickul, J. R., & Prather, C. W. (1994). Building the creative organization. Organizational Dynamics , 22 , 22–37.

Ireland, R. D., & Miller, C. C. (2004). Decision making and firm success. Academy of Management Executive, 18 , 8–12.

Janis, I. L. (1972). Victims of groupthink . New York: Houghton Mifflin; Whyte, G. (1991). Decision failures: Why they occur and how to prevent them. Academy of Management Executive, 5 , 23–31.

Keith, N., & Frese, M. (2008). Effectiveness of error management training: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 , 59–69.

Klein, G. (2001). Linking expertise and naturalistic decision making . Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.

Klein, G. (2003). Intuition at work . New York: Doubleday; Salas, E., &amp.

Nutt, P. C. (1994). Types of organizational decision processes. Administrative Science Quarterly, 29 , 414–550.

Nutt, P. C. (1998). Surprising but true: Half the decisions in organizations fail. Academy of Management Executive, 13 , 75–90.

Nutt, P. C. (2002). Why decisions fail . San Francisco: Berrett-Koehler.

Pearsall, M. J., Ellis, A. P. J., & Evans, J. M. (2008). Unlocking the effects of gender faultlines on team creativity: Is activation the key? Journal of Applied Psychology, 93 , 225–234.

Scott, G., Leritz, L. E., & Mumford, M. D. (2004). The effectiveness of creativity training: A quantitative review. Creativity Research Journal, 16 , 361–388.

Thompson, L. (2003). Improving the creativity of organizational work groups. Academy of Management Executive, 17 , 96–109.

Tierney, P., Farmer, S. M., & Graen, G. B. (1999). An examination of leadership and employee creativity: The relevance of traits and relationships. Personnel Psychology, 52 , 591–620.

Woodman, R. W., Sawyer, J. E., & Griffin, R. W. (1993). Toward a theory of organizational creativity. Academy of Management Review, 18 , 293–321.

Zell, D. M., Glassman, A. M., & Duron, S. A. (2007). Strategic management in turbulent times: The short and glorious history of accelerated decision making at Hewlett-Packard. Organizational Dynamics, 36 , 93–104.

Principles of Management Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• Business Essentials
• Leadership & Management
• Credential of Leadership, Impact, and Management in Business (CLIMB)
• Entrepreneurship & Innovation
• Digital Transformation
• Finance & Accounting
• Business in Society
• For Organizations
• Support Portal
• Media Coverage
• Founding Donors
• Leadership Team

• Harvard Business School →
• HBS Online →
• Business Insights →

Business Insights

Harvard Business School Online's Business Insights Blog provides the career insights you need to achieve your goals and gain confidence in your business skills.

• Career Development
• Communication
• Decision-Making
• Earning Your MBA
• Negotiation
• News & Events
• Productivity
• Staff Spotlight
• Student Profiles
• Work-Life Balance
• AI Essentials for Business
• Alternative Investments
• Business Analytics
• Business Strategy
• Business and Climate Change
• Design Thinking and Innovation
• Digital Marketing Strategy
• Disruptive Strategy
• Economics for Managers
• Entrepreneurship Essentials
• Financial Accounting
• Global Business
• Launching Tech Ventures
• Leadership Principles
• Leadership, Ethics, and Corporate Accountability
• Leading with Finance
• Management Essentials
• Negotiation Mastery
• Organizational Leadership
• Power and Influence for Positive Impact
• Strategy Execution
• Sustainable Business Strategy
• Sustainable Investing
• Winning with Digital Platforms

5 Key Decision-Making Techniques for Managers

• 31 Mar 2020

Decision-making is an essential business skill that drives organizational performance. A survey of more than 750 companies by management consulting firm Bain found a 95 percent correlation between decision-making effectiveness and financial results. The data also showed companies that excel at making and executing strategic decisions generate returns nearly six percent higher than those of their competitors.

At many organizations, it’s up to managers to make the key decisions that influence business strategy. Research by consulting firm McKinsey , however, shows that 61 percent of them believe at least half the time they spend doing so is ineffective.

If you want to avoid falling into this demographic, here are five decision-making techniques you can employ to improve your management skills and help your organization succeed.

Access your free e-book today.

Decision-Making Techniques for Managers

1. take a process-oriented approach.

One of your primary responsibilities as a manager is to get things done with and through others, which involves leveraging organizational processes to accomplish goals and produce results. According to Harvard Business School Professor Len Schlesinger, who’s featured in the online course Management Essentials , decision-making is one of the processes you can use to your advantage.

“The majority of people think about making decisions as an event,” Schlesinger says. “It’s very rare to find a single point in time where a ‘decision of significance’ is made and things go forward from there. What we’re really talking about is a process. The role of the manager in overseeing that process is straightforward, yet, at the same time, extraordinarily complex.”

When establishing your decision-making process , first frame the issue at hand to ensure you ask the right questions and everyone agrees on what needs to be decided. From there, build your team and manage group dynamics to analyze the problem and craft a viable solution. By following a structured, multi-step process, you can make informed decisions and achieve the desired outcome.

2. Involve Your Team in the Process

Decision-making doesn’t have to be done in a vacuum. To avoid relying on managerial decisions alone, involve your team in the process to bring multiple viewpoints into the conversation and stimulate creative problem-solving .

Research in the journal Royal Society Open Science shows team decision-making is highly effective because it pools individuals’ collective knowledge and experience, leading to more innovative solutions and helping to surface and overcome hidden biases among groups.

Considering others’ perspectives on how to approach and surmount a specific challenge is an ideal alternative because it helps you become more aware of your implicit biases and manage your team with greater emotional intelligence .

Related: Emotional Intelligence Skills: What They Are & How to Develop Them

3. Foster a Collaborative Mindset

Fostering the right mindset early in the decision-making process is critical to ensuring your team works collaboratively—not contentiously.

When facing a decision, there are two key mindsets to consider:

• Advocacy: A mindset that regards decision-making as a contest. In a group with an advocacy mindset, individuals try to persuade others, defend their positions, and downplay their weaknesses.
• Inquiry: A mindset that navigates decision-making with collaborative problem-solving. An inquiry mindset centers on individuals testing and evaluating assumptions by presenting balanced arguments, considering alternatives, and being open to constructive criticism.

“On the surface, advocacy and inquiry approaches look deceptively similar,” HBS Professor David Garvin says in Management Essentials . “Both involve individuals engaged in debates, drawing on data, developing alternatives, and deciding on future directions. But, despite these similarities, inquiry and advocacy produce very different results.”

A study by software company Cloverpop found that decisions made and executed by diverse teams deliver 60 percent better results. Strive to instill your team members with an inquiry mindset so they’re empowered to think critically and feel their perspectives are welcomed and valued rather than discouraged and dismissed.

4. Create and Uphold Psychological Safety

For your team members to feel comfortable sharing their diverse perspectives and working collaboratively, it’s crucial to create and maintain a psychologically safe environment. According to research by technology company Google , psychological safety is the most important dynamic found among high-performing teams.

“Psychological safety is essential—first and foremost—for getting the information and perspectives out,” HBS Professor Amy Edmondson says in Management Essentials . “It’s helpful to be able to talk about what we know and think in an effective and thoughtful way before coming to a final conclusion.”

To help your team feel psychologically safe, be respectful and give fair consideration when listening to everyone’s opinions. When voicing your own point of view, be open and transparent, and adapt your communication style to meet the group’s needs. By actively listening and being attuned to your colleagues’ emotions and attitudes, you can forge a stronger bond of trust, make them feel more engaged and foster an environment that allows for more effective decisions.

Related: 5 Tips for Managing Change in the Workplace

5. Reiterate the Goals and Purpose of the Decision

Throughout the decision-making process, it’s vital to avoid common management pitfalls and lose sight of the goals and purpose of the decision on the table.

The goals you’re working toward need to be clearly articulated at the outset of the decision-making process—and constantly reiterated throughout—to ensure they’re ultimately achieved.

“It’s easy, as you get into these conversations, to get so immersed in one substantive part of the equation that you lose track of what the actual purpose is,” Schlesinger says.

Revisiting purpose is especially important when making decisions related to complex initiatives—such as organizational change —to ensure your team feels motivated and aligned and understands how their contributions tie into larger objectives.

Why Are Decision-Making Skills Important?

Effective decision-making can immensely impact organizational performance. By developing your decision-making skills, you can exercise sound judgment and guide your team through the appropriate frameworks and processes—resulting in more data-driven decisions .

You can also anticipate and navigate organizational challenges while analyzing the outcomes of previous efforts, which can have lasting effects on your firm’s success.

Improve Your Decision-Making Skills

Enhancing your decision-making capabilities can be an integral part of your journey to becoming a better manager , reaching your business goals, and advancing your career. In addition to real-world experience, furthering your education by taking a management training course can equip you with a wide range of skills and knowledge that enable both your team and organization to thrive.

Do you want to design, direct, and shape organizational processes to your advantage? Explore Management Essentials , one of our online leadership and management courses , and discover how you can influence the context and environment in which decisions get made.

This post was updated on December 21, 2022. It was originally published on March 31, 2020.

About the Author

How it works

For Business

Join Mind Tools

Article • 10 min read

How to Make Decisions

A model for making the best possible choices.

By the Mind Tools Content Team

Some decisions are so simple that you're barely aware you're making them, while others are time consuming, high risk, and can leave you feeling anxious.

Decisions can make or break a project or an entire business. And they often involve complex and unpredictable interpersonal issues, too.

What Is Decision Making?

Decision making is a process of choosing between possibilities. It is often part of problem solving. The more complex the decision, the more factors you'll need to consider before deciding on a course of action. There are many tools and strategies that can help you to make decisions more thoughtfully and effectively.

What Are the 3 Types of Decision Making?

• Strategic: Long-term, high-level decisions determine the direction of an organization and require a lot of forethought.
• Tactical: These decisions translate strategic direction into action, focusing on how and why work gets done.
• Operational: Daily, routine decisions put strategic and tactical goals into practice.

Decision makers at all levels benefit from building strong decision-making skills.

What Can Prevent Effective Decision Making?

• Lacking relevant information: When you don’t fully understand a situation, it’s hard to make a good decision about it.
• Misidentifying the problem: Be clear that your decision addresses a root cause, not just a symptom.
• Failing to consider risks: Assess the consequences of each course of action before choosing one.
• Letting bias cloud your judgment: View your choices with objectivity and seek stakeholder feedback.
• Not communicating: Many decisions involve more than one person, so make sure everyone’s on the same page.

In this article and video, we explore a seven-step approach for improving the quality of your decision making, and for boosting your chances of a successful outcome.

What Are the 7 Steps of Decision Making?

To avoid making a bad decision, you need to bring a range of decision-making skills together in a logical and ordered process. We recommend the following seven steps:

• Investigate the situation in detail.
• Create a constructive environment.
• Generate good alternatives.
• Explore your options.
• Select the best solution.
• Evaluate your plan.
• Communicate your decision, and take action.

Quick Tips on Decision Making

• This process will ensure that you make a good decision in a complex situation, but it may be unnecessarily complicated for small or simple decisions. In these cases, jump to Step 5.
• If you need to make a quick decision under pressure, see our articles, OODA Loops and The TDODAR Decision Model .
• Take our How Good is Your Decision-Making? quiz to find out how well you're doing now!

Let's look at each of the seven steps in detail. Each step features a list of related Mind Tools resources to help you further.

Step 1: Investigate the Situation in Detail

Decisions often fail because key factors are missed or ignored from the outset. So, before you can begin to make a decision, you need to fully understand your situation.

Start by considering the decision in the context of the problem it is intended to address. You need to determine whether the stated problem is the real issue, or just a symptom of something deeper.

Look beyond the obvious. It may be that your objective can be approached in isolation, but it's more likely that there are a number of interrelated factors to consider. Changes made in one department, for example, could have knock-on effects elsewhere, making the change counterproductive.

How Can Mind Tools Help Your Decision Making?

Take a look at our tools and resources for each step of the decision-making process.

Investigative Tools:

Root Cause Analysis

Inductive Reasoning

The CATWOE Checklist

Six Thinking Hats

Step 2: Create a Constructive Environment for Your Decision

Can you give your decision the attention it needs? Spend some time preparing yourself before diving in to the facts and figures.

Remember that most decisions will affect other people too, so it helps to create a constructive environment in which to explore the situation together and gain support.

This is especially true when you have to rely on other people to implement a decision that you're responsible for. You'll need to identify who to include in the process and who will be part of any final decision-making group, which will ideally comprise just five to seven people.

Enable people to contribute to the discussions without any fear of the other participants rejecting them and their ideas. Make sure that everyone recognizes that the objective is to make the best decision possible in the circumstances, without blame.

Collaboration Tools:

Personal Preparation for Great Decision Making

Stakeholder Analysis

Vroom-Yetton Decision Model

Contructive Controversy

Avoiding Groupthink

Step 3: Generate Good Alternatives to Decide Between

The wider the options you explore, the better your final decision is likely to be. Generating a number of different options may seem to make your decision more complicated at first, but the act of coming up with alternatives forces you to dig deeper and to look at the problem from different angles.

This is when it can be helpful to employ a variety of creative thinking techniques. These can help you to step outside your normal patterns of thinking and come up with some truly innovative solutions.

Brainstorming is probably the most popular method of generating ideas, but for more tips on how to examine your situation from new perspectives, and how to organize ideas into manageable themes and groups, see the Mind Tools resources in the box, below.

Creativity Tools:

Crawford Slip Writing Technique

Round-Robin Brainstorming

Reframing Matrix

Appreciative Inquiry

Affinity Diagrams

Step 4: Explore Your Options

When you're satisfied that you have a good selection of realistic alternatives, it's time to evaluate the feasibility, risks and implications of each one.

Almost every decision involves some degree of risk. You'll need a structured approach for assessing threats and evaluating the probability of adverse events occurring – and what they might cost to manage. You'll also want to examine the ethical impact of each option, and how that might sit with your personal and organizational values.

The resources highlighted below offer tried-and-true models to help you.

Analysis Tools:

Risk Analysis

Futures Wheel

Starbursting

Force Field Analysis

Quantitative Pros and Cons

Cost-Benefit Analysis

The Foursquare Protocol

Decision Tree Analysis

Step 5: Select the Best Solution

Once you've evaluated the alternatives, the next step is to make your decision!

If you have various criteria to consider, use Decision Matrix Analysis to compare them reliably and rigorously. Or, if you want to determine which ones should carry most weight in your decision, conduct a Paired Comparison Analysis.

If your decision is being made within a group , techniques such as multi-voting and the Modified Borda Count can help your team reach an agreement.

When anonymity is important, decision-makers dislike one another, or there is a tendency for certain individuals to dominate the process, use the Delphi Technique to reach a fair and impartial decision. This uses cycles of anonymous, written discussion and argument, managed by a facilitator. Participants do not meet, and sometimes they don't even know who else is involved.

If you're working with an established team, Hartnett's Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making Model is useful for encouraging everyone to participate in making the decision. Or, if you're working with several different teams, or a particularly large group, assign responsibility for each stage of the decision-making process with Bain's RAPID Framework, so that everyone understands their responsibilities and any potential in-fighting can be avoided.

Decision-Making Tools:

Decision Matrix Analysis

Paired Comparison Analysis

Multi-Voting

Modified Borda Count

Hartnett's Consensus-Oriented Decision-Making Model

Bain's RAPID Framework

Step 6: Evaluate Your Plan

After all the effort and hard work you've invested in evaluating and selecting alternatives, it can be tempting to forge ahead at this stage. But now, more than ever, is the time to "sense check" your decision. After all, hindsight is great for identifying why things have gone wrong, but it's far better to prevent mistakes from happening in the first place!

Before you start to implement your decision, take a long, dispassionate look at it to be sure that you have been thorough, and that common errors haven't crept into the process.

Your final decision is only as good as the facts and research you used to make it. Make sure that your information is trustworthy, and that you've done your best not to "cherry pick" data. This will help you avoid confirmation bias, a common psychological bias in decision making.

Discuss your preliminary conclusions with important stakeholders to enable them to spot flaws, make recommendations, and support your conclusions. Listen to your own intuition, too, and quietly and methodically test assumptions and decisions against your own experience. BRAIN BRAN BRAND is a useful tool for this. If you have any doubts, examine them thoroughly to work out what's troubling you.

Use Blindspot Analysis to review whether you've fallen prey to problems like over-confidence, escalating commitment, or groupthink. And consider checking the logical structure of your process with the Ladder of Inference, to make sure that a well-founded and consistent decision emerges at the end.

Evaluation Tools:

10 Common Decision-Making Mistakes

BRAIN, BRAN, BRAND

Avoiding Psychological Bias in Decision Making

Blindspot Analysis

Ladder of Inference

Step 7: Communicate Your Decision, and Take Action

Once you've made your decision, you need to communicate it to everyone affected by it in an engaging, informative and inspiring way.

Get them involved in implementing the solution by discussing how and why you arrived at your decision. The more information you provide about risks and projected benefits, the more likely people will be to support it.

If people point out a flaw in your process as a result, have the humility to welcome their input and review your plans appropriately – it's much better to do this now, cheaply, than having to do it expensively (and embarrassingly) if your plans have failed.

Change Management Tools:

The Four Principles of Change Management

Prospect Theory

Coping With Change

Bridges' Transitions Model

Decision Making FAQs

What is the decision-making process.

The seven-step decision-making process outlined above can help you to make good decisions about complex topics.

What Are Decision-Making Skills?

Skills for making good decisions include understanding the problem, brainstorming solutions, evaluating different options, and communicating with others who are affected by the decision.

What Are Decision-Making Biases?

We all have cognitive biases, or tendencies to think and act in irrational ways. These can influence our decision making, but being aware of our biases can help us make better decisions. See our article on cognitive bias to learn about these biases and how we can avoid them.

Systematically combining a range of decision-making tools can help you make highly effective decisions, either individually or as part of a group. The seven-step strategy is:

You've accessed 1 of your 2 free resources.

Get unlimited access

Discover more content

Decision-making techniques.

Steps for Making Good Choices

A Checklist for Making Better Decisions

Add comment

Comments (0)

Be the first to comment!

Get 30% off your first year of Mind Tools

Great teams begin with empowered leaders. Our tools and resources offer the support to let you flourish into leadership. Join today!

Sign-up to our newsletter

Subscribing to the Mind Tools newsletter will keep you up-to-date with our latest updates and newest resources.

Subscribe now

Business Skills

Personal Development

Leadership and Management

Member Extras

Most Popular

Newest Releases

What Is Stakeholder Management?

GE-McKinsey Matrix

Mind Tools Store

About Mind Tools Content

Discover something new today

Business reports.

Using the Right Format for Sharing Information

Making the Right Career Move

Choosing the Role That's Best for You

How Emotionally Intelligent Are You?

Boosting Your People Skills

Self-Assessment

What's Your Leadership Style?

Learn About the Strengths and Weaknesses of the Way You Like to Lead

Recommended for you

How to ask for a pay raise.

Evaluating and Negotiating Your Value to the Business

Business Operations and Process Management

Strategy Tools

Customer Service

Business Ethics and Values

Handling Information and Data

Project Management

Knowledge Management

Self-Development and Goal Setting

Time Management

Presentation Skills

Learning Skills

Career Skills

Communication Skills

Negotiation, Persuasion and Influence

Working With Others

Difficult Conversations

Creativity Tools

Self-Management

Work-Life Balance

Stress Management and Wellbeing

Coaching and Mentoring

Change Management

Team Management

Managing Conflict

Delegation and Empowerment

Performance Management

Leadership Skills

Developing Your Team

Talent Management

Problem Solving

Decision Making

Member Podcast

Federal Emergency Management Agency | Emergency Management Institute

• Independent Study Program (IS)

IS-241.C: Decision Making and Problem Solving

Follow fema:.

• Email Updates

Climate Adaptation and Hazard Mitigation Certificate Program

Maintenance outage extended - friday, october 27th, 2023.

We will be performing scheduled maintenance on Thursday, May 16, 2024 at 7:00 AM ET. Service is expected to be restored by 10:00 AM ET. However, this could run over. During this time Independent Study exams, Online Admissions, NETC Transportation, IMDA, STAR and the EMI Student Portal will not be available. Please contact us if you experience any issues outside of this maintenance window.

Notice: The Independent Study Program office will be closed Monday December 24, 2018.

Course Date

Course overview, course objectives:.

At the completion of this course, participants should be able to:

• Describe how decisions made before an emergency affect decision making and problem solving during an emergency.
• Identify attributes associated with an effective decision maker.
• Describe the steps in the problem-solving model.
• Describe strategies for effective group decision making.
• Describe crisis decision making and strategies for applying the problem-solving model.
• Describe ethical decision making.

Prerequisites

Course length:.

• Interactive Web Based Course
• Please note that the is program now requires a fema sid to be used instead of your ssn. if you do not have a sid, register for one here .
• Take Final Exam Online
• Test questions are scrambled to protect test integrity

Quick Help Guide

• Access IS Completion Documents
• Browser Cookies and Files
• Disable Pop-up Blockers
• How to Take ISP Courses
• Independent Study Inquiry
• Technical System Requirements

Useful Documents & Forms

• Download Course Brochure
• Independent Study Flyer
• Independent Study Fact Sheet
• Name Change Request Form
• Transcript Request

Featured Topics

• Continuing Education Units

Have an account?

Thinking and decision-making

11th - 12th grade, social studies.

9 questions

Introducing new   Paper mode

No student devices needed.   Know more

Which of the following statements is true about thinking, decision making and problem solving?

Decision making is a part of problem solving - and both decision making and problem solving are examples of thinking.

Decision making is an aspect of thinking - but not part of problem solving.

Problem solving is a part of decision making - but only decision making is a true example of thinking.

Thinking, decision making and problem solving are three distinct cognitive processes with no overlap in what they do.

Mary believes that she is an excellent math student. In fact, her favorite unit is statistics. However, when she is asked to critically evaluate the data of a experiment in psychology class, she does not know how to do it. How does the Dual Process model explain this?

She has developed the System 2 thinking necessary for math class, but not for psychology class.

Her knowledge from mathematics is interfering with her knowledge in psychology.

She is not able to transfer her understanding in mathematics to a new context (situation). So, her approach to solving the problem shows System 1 thinking.

Mary's self-esteem in psychology class is interfering with her ability to solve the problem. It has nothing to do with System 1 and System 2 thinking.

If I meet two students from your school and they are brilliant psychology students, I may then conclude that your school must have an amazing psychology program. This conclusion follows a simple “rule of thumb” or a mental short-cut called a

participant bias

matching bias

When are we more likely to use System 1 thinking?

When we have practiced something a lot.

When we have too much information to process.

When the problem is highly abstract.

When we need to transfer information from one situation to another.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of System 1 thinking?

It is dependent on context - that is, environmental cues - to solve the problem.

Is able to transfer information from one situation to another.

Requires little effort.

Results in creating impressions.

Which of the following statements is true about the Wason selection task?

When people are trained in how to do the task, they no longer make errors.

People tend to be able to explain their decisions to the researcher.

People get better at the task the older they get.

People make fewer errors when the task is put into a context which they understand, rather than an abstract task.

Which of the following is not a characteristic of System 2 thinking?

It is the basis for most of our day to day decision making.

It is slow and requires conscious effort.

Is logical and less prone to error.

According to Goel et al (2000), which part of the brain may be responsible for processing abstract problems?

The temporal lobe

The frontal lobe

The parietal lobe

The hypothalamus

Which of the following is not a limitation of the Dual Process Model?

It does not explain the interaction of the two systems.

There is no biological support for a two systems approach.

It is reductionist - it does not explain the role of emotion in decision making.

The descriptors of the different systems are not well operationalized - for example, not all fast processing is System 1.

Explore all questions with a free account

Continue with email

Continue with phone