IDS 6481 Managerial Decision Making

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IDS 6481ManagerialDecision Making

• Shawn Curley
• Professor
• Information Decision Sciences

http//www.umn.edu/curley
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Aims
Understanding the dynamics of decision making,
towards the practical goal of improving decision
making

• How are decisions made?
• How do decisions fail?
• What techniques can be used to improve decisions?
• Developing and evaluating such techniques are
  the ultimate goals of the course.

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Texts

• Senge PM. (1994).  The fifth discipline The art
  practice of the learning organization.  New
  York Doubleday.  ISBN 0385260954 (paperback).
• Yates JF. (2003).  Decision management How to
  assure better decisions in your company.  Jossey
  Bass. ISBN 0787956260 (hardcover).

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Articles

• Gottlieb B.  (Sept. 1, 1999).  Cooking the school
  books How U.S. News cheats in picking its "best
  American colleges." Washingtonpost.Newsweek
  Interactive Co. LLC. http//www.slate.com/id/340
  27.
• Thompson N.  (Sept. 15, 2000).  Cooking the
  school books (yet again) The U.S. News college
  rankings get phonier and phonier.
  Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive Co. LLC.
  http//www.slate.com/id/89623.
• Cross RL Brodt SE.  (2001). How assumptions of
  consensus undermine decision making. Sloan
  Management Review, 42 (2), 86ff.
• Eisenhardt KM.  (1990). Speed and strategic
  choice How managers accelerate decision making. 
  California Management Review, 32 (3), 39ff.
• Seybold PB. (2001).  Get inside the lives of
  your customers.  Harvard Business Review, 79 (5),
  80ff.

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Cases

• Product OIT37 Product Title
  Zaplet Publisher Harvard Business School
  Publishing
• Product 9-605-009Product Title Novell Open
  Source Software StrategyPublisher Harvard
  Business School Publishing

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(No Transcript)
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Sample Report 1

• Describe one decision--past or present business,
  personal or social/political.  Provide the
  following
• What problem was the decision intended to
  address? Provide a brief, appropriate problem
  statement.
• Who were the key decision parties  the
  decider(s), the immediate beneficiaries, and any
  particularly relevant distant beneficiaries and
  stakeholders. Describe their involvement.
• Was the decision a success?  Or, if it is not
  decided yet, is the decision process a good one? 
  Justify your judgment.
• Is/Was the decision difficult?  Why/why not?

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Course Topic

• Systems Diagrams

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Systems DiagramCausation with Feedback

• Positive causal relationship

-
Negative causal relationship
Constraint
R
Reinforcing feedback loop
B
Balancing feedback loop
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Workshop Mini-CaseDescription

• The engineers and managers in a workshop are
  exploring the causes of late delivery for their
  organizations design work. In particular, they
  want to represent the behavior of engineers
  trying to complete a project against deadline.
  As they work, the engineers judge the remaining
  work against the time remaining until the
  deadline. When schedule pressure builds up, the
  engineers use one or another of two choices
• They work overtime. Instead of the normal 50
  hours/week, they come early, skip lunch, stay
  late and/or work weekends. This option relieves
  the work pressure but, if maintained too long,
  fatigue sets in and productivity suffers.
• They reduce the time spent on each task. This
  relieves schedule pressure by boosting the number
  of tasks done per hour. Discussion of this
  option was heated. The managers felt this was
  useful in squeezing out waste and getting the
  engineers to focus on the job. The engineers
  argued that this option leads to cutting quality
  assurance and skipping documentation of their
  work. If so, the error rate and need for rework
  increase.

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Workshop Mini-CaseDiagram
Time Available
-
-
Schedule Pressure


B
delay
Delivery Time
Time per Task
Overtime
B

-

Fatigue
-
R
R
Completion Rate
-
-
Error Rate
-

Productivity
delay
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In-Class Activities
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Class DebateDecision Quality

• How should decisions be assessed by process or
  outcomes?
• Split room in half, each half to argue one side
• Consider in small groups in your half for 5
  minutes
• All together Each side of room debate their
  side
• Wrap up

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Zaplet CaseCardinal Issues and NGT

• Cardinal Issues Small Group Discussion
• Identify cardinal issues and how Zaplet handled
  each
• 5 minutes per issue
• Demonstrate Nominal Group Technique
• Individual generation of ideas
• Option generation at time October, 2001
• Ideas shared and recorded in small groups
• Discussion

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PossibilitiesCustomer Scenarios

• Seybold PB. (2001).  Get inside the lives of
  your customers.  Harvard Business Review, 79 (5),
  80ff.
• Select a target customer set
• Identify a goal and situation
• Map the steps to the goal
• Identify customer needs at 1 or more of the steps
• Identify opportunities to meet needs
• Small group exercise
• Apply to Hollywood Video / Blockbuster