All entries for Saturday 19 March 2011

Final Day Decision

2 weeks of work on our decision making presentation.

Countless hours arguing over the fine point of various tools, the scales we schould use, the weighting and their justifications.

Numerous days off ill.

More time spent in uni than home....

And finally it was here. Our presentations for waveriders strategic choice. We were plesently surprised to see others among us who had thought similarly out of the box with the solutions, impressed by the detail and complexity embraced by some using tools such as ahp, and intrigued by the different results and figures achieved by those who used the same tools as us for the same problem. FOr me, the last point just goes to show that no matter what you do, ridding yourself of bias in decisions is an impossible task. Even when using decision tools to minimise it, bias exists. For example in thr decision tree... what order do you put in chance and decision events? Or in simple grid analysis tables, when the order or preferences are known for factors, what actual weighting is appropriate. How much better is each factor than the other? It seems there is no correct answer, only a justified one. Any decision can be said to contain bias, but in approaching these with system 2 thinking, using various tools to minimise bias, what we can do is justify why we choose what we do. To every individual this process may result in a different solution for the same problem. What does this mean? There is not necessarily a right answer, just a good, reasoned answer.

: 19 Mar 2011 11:38 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem