Stewart L. Tubbs

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6C H A P T E RC H A P T E R

Decision-Making Processes

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Decision-Making Processes

• Improving Creativity• Reflective Thinking Process• The Kepner-Tregoe Approach• The Fishbone Technique• Brainstorming• Six Thinking Hats• Incrementation• Mixed Scanning• Tacit Bargaining• Review of the Systems Approach

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Slide 3

Improving Creativity

• Creative thinking is often characterized as thinking “outside the box”.

• Creativity can be divided into two phases of thinking:– Divergent thinking– Convergent thinking

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Improving Creativity

• Gibson and Hodgetts (1986) identify four different kinds of creativity that may be applied to group problem solving.– Innovation– Synthesis– Extension– Duplication

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Improving Creativity

• Left- and Right-Brain Functions

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Reflective Thinking Process

• The reflective thinking sequence first proposed by John Dewey (1910) emphasizes the left-brain functions.– Define problem.– Analyze causes.– Identify criteria.– Generate solutions.

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The Kepner-Tregoe Approach

• The Kepner-Tregoe approach is very effective across industries, countries, and cultures.

• Analytic Trouble Shooting (ATS) focuses mostly on problem solving through two key steps:

–identification of root causes

–action steps

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The Kepner-Tregoe Approach

– The most important contribution seems to be the way in which a group works through the criteria phase.

• There are certain required elements and other desired element to any solution, called musts and wants by Kepner and Tregoe.

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The Kepner-Tregoe Approach

• SSC Ratings for Competing States

Source: From Mike Magner. “Geology Blamed for State’s Loss of Atom Smasher,” Ann Arbor News, 11

November 1988, pp. A1, A4.

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The Fishbone Technique

• The Fishbone Technique is so called because its outline resembles the skeleton of a fish.– It helps to identify graphically the underlying

causes of a problem.

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Brainstorming

• Brainstorming is a lateral thinking process.

• Brainstorming encourages open and random thinking and communications

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Brainstorming

• Brainstorming emphasizes right-brain activity.– Rules for brainstorming:

• Put judgment and evaluation aside temporarily.

• Turn imagination loose, and start offering the results.

• Think of as many ideas as you can.

• Seek combination and improvement.

• Record all ideas in full view.

• Evaluate at a later session.

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Brainstorming

The Fishbone Technique

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Brainstorming

• Alternative Brainstorming Techniques

–Random Input

Reframing

Professions approach

Provocation

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Brainstorming

• Alternative Brainstorming Techniques

–SCAMPER systemS=substitute

C=combine

A=adapt

M=modify

P=put to another use

E=eliminate

R=reverse

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Six Thinking Hats

• Six thinking hats is an intuitive way to keep your thoughts focused while problem solving.

– White hat—emotionally neutral.– Red hat—emotions, gut instincts, intuition, and feelings.– Black hat—represents careful and analytical thinking.– Yellow hat—represents sunny, optimistic, and positive

thinking.– Green hat—represents creativity, new ideas,

alternatives, and possibilities.– Blue hat—represents coordination, control, and the

discipline to know when to use which hat.

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Incrementalism

• Braybrooke and Lindblom (1963) argue that numerous decisions concerning governmental policies are arrived at partially as a result of adapting to political pressure rather than as a result of rational analysis.

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Incrementalism

• The term incrementalism refers to the process of making decisions that result in change.– Quadrant 1—High understanding/large change– Quadrant 2—High understanding/incremental

change– Quadrant 3—Low understanding/incremental

change– Quadrant 4—Low understanding/large change

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Incrementation

• Model of Decision-Making

Source: Reprinted with permission of the Free Press, a Division of Macmillan, Inc., from David Braybrooke and Charles C. Lindbloom. A Strategy of Decision, copyright © 1963 by

The Free Press of Glencoe.

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Mixed Scanning

• Etzioni (1968) offers a decision-making strategy that is a combination of reflective thinking and incrementalism.– The ability to maintain a balance between

attention to the general and attention to the specific appears to be a major factor in successful problem solving.

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Tacit Bargaining

• Murnighan (1992) advanced a strategy referred to as “tacit bargaining” or “bargaining in which communication is incomplete or impossible”.– People can cooperate fairly successfully in some

problem-solving situations if it is to their advantage to do so.

• Mixed-motive situations—when there is simultaneous pressure to cooperate and to compete– imply communication procedures that are distinctly different from those in other problem-solving situations.

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Tacit Bargaining

• Virtual decision-making–The decision-making process in the virtual process

is a thoughtful and time-consuming process.–Online tools that help groups make decisions are

called decision support systems (DSS).

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Review of the Systems Approach

• The decision-making process in most groups can be improved.

• The systems principle of equifinality is that several alternative methods may be used to reach the solution to the group’s problem.

• The appropriateness of any method will depend on the demands of the specific situation.

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Slide 24

Review of the Systems Approach

• The rational problem-solving methods work well in most cases but seem particularly suited to an autonomous group trying to satisfy its own needs while being allowed to do so by a democratic leader.

• Tacit bargaining seems to be primarily appropriate in mixed-motive situations.

• The demands of the situation play a great part in suggesting which problem-solving strategy we want to employ.