While some decisions are difficult, I always thought the process of decision making was itself pretty straight-forward:
- Identify the Decision that Needs to Be Made
- Identify the Alternatives
- Select the Best Option
considering the advantages, disadvantages, facts, and goals
but according to a recent article in the Supply Chain Management Review, putting the structure in decision making is a complex seven step process:
- Frame and describe the situation about which a decision is to be made.
- Define the objective(s) of the decision and the criteria that define the objectives.
- Extract obligatory criteria.
- Creatively identify decision options that meet all obligatory criteria.
- Gather information on decision alternatives, and develop the judgment table.
- Assign weights to the obligatory criteria.
- Rank alternatives.
Wow! No wonder some organizations can never make a decision! If they even make it to step for, they’re too exhausted to continue!
Identifying the alternatives and figuring out which is best overall against multiple criteria is often hard enough — don’t make it harder than it has to be!