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David G. Ullman |
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Professor, Department of Mechanical Engineering
Camas |
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Oregon State University 800 NW Starker Ave |
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Corvallis Oregon, 97331 Corvallis 97330 |
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541-737-2336 541-738-8701 |
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ullman@engr.orst.edu ullman@camas.org |
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www.engr.orst.edu/~ullman |
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The solution of most problems require the
evolution of information punctuated by decisions |
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For the vast majority of problems, there are no
right answers, only satisfactory answers. |
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A decision is a commitment to use resources. |
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Planning is about 75% deduction |
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If <situation> then do <this
activity>. |
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Design
work is only 13 % deduction |
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Design
is mainly search |
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Develop criteria |
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Generate alternatives |
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Compare alternatives to criteria |
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Decide what to do next |
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The risk of solving the wrong problem or Envisioning Risk |
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The risk of not developing good alternatives
or Ideation Risk |
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The risk of choosing a poor alternative or Evaluation Risk |
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The risk of not following a beneficial strategy
or Strategic Risk |
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The risk of not being able to implement the
decision or Execution Risk |
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The risk of not being able to solve the problem
or Problem Solver Risk |
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The risk of not getting the best from the
problem solvers or Organizational Risk |
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The problem has known or discoverable
boundaries; |
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There are many potentially acceptable
alternatives for solving the problem. |
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It is possible to develop criteria that measure
how well the alternatives solve the problem. |
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One or more people have a stake in the solution
of the problem. |
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All decision-makers must be interested in
solving the problem. |
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Encourage sound decision-making skills |
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Organize decision-making to be most
effective. Most decisions are ad
hoc; fashioned from whatever is immediately available. Often this just isn’t good enough. |
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Make robust decisions, decisions that are
insensitive to things you can not control. |
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Communicate what is important to other team
members. The largest single problem
in teamwork is poor communication.
The methods presented give a framework for decision-making
communication. |
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Help the team develop a common understanding of
the issue and its alternative solutions. |
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Make meetings more effective. The methods help structure meetings by
developing a strategy and organizing information for easy review. |
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Understand why a decision is not being reached
and develop a strategy to resolve the issue. Often a problem is not being
resolved and the only action is frustration. The methods help get problems unstuck. |
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Understand how to get the best out of the people
on the team. Teams are often
dominated by a few. The methods
help even the playing field. |
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Analytically
support decision-making regardless of completeness of the problem, the
qualitative nature of the evaluation or inconsistency of team member
opinions about what is important. |
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Rationally decide what to do next to reach a
robust decision. |
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Convince managers that the team has carefully
studied the problem and which solution should be implemented. |
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Easily develop documentation of the decision. |
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Reveal the process of decision making for review
and reuse. Understanding and
refining the process is important and more easily done if it is structured
as developed in this book. |
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Reduce the need to rework the results of
non-robust decisions. In industry
this is often referred to as “fire fighting.” Fire-fighting takes valuable time from working on new issues. |
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Notes