All entries for April 2019

SUBJECTIVE DECISIONS

The presentation went well on Monday. I was surprised that no questions were raised on the use of Multi Criteria decision making tool. But after a bit of analysis I realized that the use of tool was relevant. Even a SMART tool could have been used in that area. Actually when I gave the weights to the criteria, I made sure that the numbering of the weights on different criteria was very close to each other. This provided justification of removal of bias in the final decision due to one criteria. But one thing is very sure that I need to learn to apply these tools in the practical scenario and only then will I learn to use them. Another very important lesson from yesterday was that of GROUP THINK in decision making. I think I do that very often. I always wait for other people's responses in order to judge my response and only then i tend to make a decision. I think it is very important for me to take an unbiased decision first of all and then try to justify the fact. I have observed people taking their decisions and then expressing their strong opinion and keep on giving the facts. I feel sometimes I feel too lazy to debate on the fact until and unless i feel it is really important. I think I need to push myself a bit more in taking decisions that I am confused about and backing them with facts. One of the biggest things that I feel is that I am too flexible with options and feel that all are right which tend me to confusion in decision making. It is not good for a leader. Not able to decide where to eat and what to wear actually make a mental rotine which cause confusion in major decision making. I feel that me being too flexile also contributes to that.

Today we did a lot about the role of emotions in decision-making. Emotions cannot be excluded from a decision making process. The best response is to control them and make sure that they do not have a negative effect on the whole process. The whole motivation theory responds on the basis emotion. If a person likes something and has positive emotion to do that thing that there are more chances of that person being motivated to actually do that thing. Therefore, the emotions guide the motivation. Actually the emotion regulation strategies should be used in order to change the emotions and not let them effect us negatively. Paul always discusses in the class the effect of creating the right environment. This right environment in the workplace will create the right emotions in the people of firm. This effect of the right environment and right emotion has a poitive impact on increased motivation.

There has been a lot of debate on the System 1 and the System 2 thinking. I feel that most of the times I overthink and that make very less decisions based on just feelings. I think there is a requirement of the right balance between the two to make the decisions. On the organisational level I would prefer to use the System 2 thinking. It is more logical. System 1 should be used more in daily decisions. One good thing that I learnt is that we should never regret. Regret leads to dwelling in the past but actually it is learning which is more constructive. The simulation today on the emotional intelligence was also very good. The one point that struck me was on fearing conflict. I think I do sometimes fear conflicts but today I learnt a very new approach towards it. Actually conflict leads to graeter bonds, and this kind of conflict is very constructive in making the right decisions in the group. There are again a lot to take from this module as well. Excited about the learning of new tools tomorrow.

Saurabh Kukreja : 30 Apr 2019 22:04 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

DECISION MAKING TOOLS

Tomorrow finally is the start of a module that I was eagerly waiting for a long time. The use of tools is something that excites me a lot. In the study week I understood one thing that the System 1 thinking of human beings which is biased cannot always be relied upon. There is a need for critical analysis in every situation before making a decision. The first and the foremost tool that I found handy was the Cost-Benefit analysis. This is something which can be used only in certain situations. For instance, if I want to look at the installation of the new Enterprise resource Planning System in the manufacturing unit. I will first of all will calculate all the costs such as the new software or training of the employees and calculate where this system saves me money. Further, I can calculate the time period in which this investment will start to payback and reap results. It can be very simple and a very handy tool. It is important to note that this tool is effective only when I have enough data to back my claims and figures.

There might be instances where accurate data is not available about the sales but the management has a subjective opinion about selecting one alternative over other. In this case . asimple grid analysis can be used to make decisions. Paul once told how he used this grid decision making analysis to help a person select the right job based on various criterias. He even told the benefit of this tool to help a business make a decision on which department they should concentrate to grow their business further. There are various other tools in this segment as well such as PMI and the trade off analysis. The common thing with all these tools is that the values that is assigned to each criteria, is very subjective and very confusing. So it upto the decision makers to assign the right values to trage off between alternatives. I prefer to use Pugh Matrix more in this situation where I need to make a selection between various alternatives. Pugh matrix has two things which are different- firstly it helps to cpmapare with the base criteria the new alternative and secondly it takes into consideration whether the alternative is better than the base criteria for the particular decision criteria. For instance if I want to develop a new product and want the size of the sole of the shoe as one of the important decision criteria to select an option. I can set a criteria that minimum size of the sole should be 10 mm. Then I can compare the possible options with that base option and can see which option fulfills this criteria. Here I don't assign any values to the criteria for each alternative. Everything is better or worse compared to baseline. I would prefer to use this tool apart from the grid analysis. But I need to remove this bias when I am selecting a tool in the future.

I want to explore more into the decision criteria tool under the unceratinity decision making. This tool gives possible alternatives and the uncertain outcomes related to that in case of high and low demand. We were asked to solve the problem that waveriders is facing as a pre module presentation. But the drawback of this tool is that it doesn't give any decision criteria. It just compares the alternatives with the possible outcomes. It can be beneficial if I am trying to enter a new market to do my business and want to make a decision on the basis of uncertain High, Medium and Low demand for each new market.

The above tools considered scenarios where there was lack of availability of data and where people had limited certainity on th ehappening of an event. When I don't know exactly whether the new market will give me how much revenue or what will be the impact of outsourcing or establishing a new plant. In this case I will use the above tools to select on the basis of uncertain outcomes or select on the basis of various criterias for each alternative.

There aew various scenarios where managers face a situation risk. Where there is a possibilty of risk or happening of the event. Again a data-driven approach will be highly beneficial is using these tools. There has to be predictions from the previous information, to calculate the current probability which I fear does not happen in the industry that I work in. The biggest challenge for me will be to gather this data to make the right decision.

Talking about the tools used in the risk situations, we had a problem given to us to take a decision for waveriders, on whether they should produce a new product or not. Here we as a team applied the combination of decision tree and the expected value analysis on whether to produce the new boat or not? We made a decision tree and assigned the probabilities to each branch and then calculated the expected return and expected cost if the new boat was manufactured. The expected return analysis said that it made sense to make the boat in any case because the (expected return minus the cost of failing to manufacture) was still giving positive returns. The decision tree is beneficial in looking at the cost and profits based on probabilities. But it cannot be used to select an alternative based on the decision criterias. We need a matrix analysis for that. We used the multi criteria decision making in the waveriders case study given in the class. there were many reasons why we used this tool. This tool helps in analysis between the various criterias, then it is really beneficial in having monetary and non-monetary criterias, plus it just does not compare the alternatives with the criterias based on the rating or subjective ranks, but it helps to derive the ranks of various alternatives based on the monetary and non-monetary values that each criteria has, plus it assigns the minimum benchmark to each criteria, additionally helps to assign weights to criteria. This is a very complex tool that can be used to make decisions based on various and diverse(Monetary and non-monetary) criterias.

I would like to analyze the SMART tool and AHP tool further, which i will try to do in the future blogs. The main benefit of the smart tool that I think is that it takes into account the benefit of the decision and the cost of that decision on the same hand. So while taking the decision we just look at the benefits first and then look at the cost. I think this is a major missing factor from the PPT that we are going to present tomorrow. But another justification is that we have given higher weights to other factors as well such as capacity. So the decision that I feel is a holistic one which includes all the criterias and takes into consideration all the factors. The decision is taken on the basis of various criterias and assigning the subjective weights.

Therefore, what I have learnt is that even while using these tools the decision taken is very subjective because the rating and the weight assigned is based on the judgement of the decision maker. Also there is a need to have a data-driven approach in the organisation to apply these tools well. I am excited to attend the module tomorrow, learn more about the tools and how to make the decisions. These are more analytical decisions which require in-depth tools.

Saurabh Kukreja : 29 Apr 2019 00:31 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

DECISION MAKING TOOLS

Tomorrow finally is the start of a module that I was eagerly waiting for a long time. The use of tools is something that excites me a lot. In the study week I understood one thing that the System 1 thinking of human beings which is biased cannot always be relied upon. There is a need for critical analysis in every situation before making a decision. The first and the foremost tool that I found handy was the Cost-Benefit analysis. This is something which can be used only in certain situations. For instance, if I want to look at the installation of the new Enterprise resource Planning System in the manufacturing unit. I will first of all will calculate all the costs such as the new software or training of the employees and calculate where this system saves me money. Further, I can calculate the time period in which this investment will start to payback and reap results. It can be very simple and a very handy tool. It is important to note that this tool is effective only when I have enough data to back my claims and figures.

There might be instances where accurate data is not available about the sales but the management has a subjective opinion about selecting one alternative over other. In this case . asimple grid analysis can be used to make decisions. Paul once told how he used this grid decision making analysis to help a person select the right job based on various criterias. He even told the benefit of this tool to help a business make a decision on which department they should concentrate to grow their business further. There are various other tools in this segment as well such as PMI and the trade off analysis. The common thing with all these tools is that the values that is assigned to each criteria, is very subjective and very confusing. So it upto the decision makers to assign the right values to trage off between alternatives. I prefer to use Pugh Matrix more in this situation where I need to make a selection between various alternatives. Pugh matrix has two things which are different- firstly it helps to cpmapare with the base criteria the new alternative and secondly it takes into consideration whether the alternative is better than the base criteria for the particular decision criteria. For instance if I want to develop a new product and want the size of the sole of the shoe as one of the important decision criteria to select an option. I can set a criteria that minimum size of the sole should be 10 mm. Then I can compare the possible options with that base option and can see which option fulfills this criteria. Here I don't assign any values to the criteria for each alternative. Everything is better or worse compared to baseline. I would prefer to use this tool apart from the grid analysis. But I need to remove this bias when I am selecting a tool in the future.

I want to explore more into the decision criteria tool under the unceratinity decision making. This tool gives possible alternatives and the uncertain outcomes related to that in case of high and low demand. We were asked to solve the problem that waveriders is facing as a pre module presentation. But the drawback of this tool is that it doesn't give any decision criteria. It just compares the alternatives with the possible outcomes. It can be beneficial if I am trying to enter a new market to do my business and want to make a decision on the basis of uncertain High, Medium and Low demand for each new market.

The above tools considered scenarios where there was lack of availability of data and where people had limited certainity on th ehappening of an event. When I don't know exactly whether the new market will give me how much revenue or what will be the impact of outsourcing or establishing a new plant. In this case I will use the above tools to select on the basis of uncertain outcomes or select on the basis of various criterias for each alternative.

There aew various scenarios where managers face a situation risk. Where there is a possibilty of risk or happening of the event. Again a data-driven approach will be highly beneficial is using these tools. There has to be predictions from the previous information, to calculate the current probability which I fear does not happen in the industry that I work in. The biggest challenge for me will be to gather this data to make the right decision.

Talking about the tools used in the risk situations, we had a problem given to us to take a decision for waveriders, on whether they should produce a new product or not. Here we as a team applied the combination of decision tree and the expected value analysis on whether to produce the new boat or not? We made a decision tree and assigned the probabilities to each branch and then calculated the expected return and expected cost if the new boat was manufactured. The expected return analysis said that it made sense to make the boat in any case because the (expected return minus the cost of failing to manufacture) was still giving positive returns. The decision tree is beneficial in looking at the cost and profits based on probabilities. But it cannot be used to select an alternative based on the decision criterias. We need a matrix analysis for that. We used the multi criteria decision making in the waveriders case study given in the class. there were many reasons why we used this tool. This tool helps in analysis between the various criterias, then it is really beneficial in having monetary and non-monetary criterias, plus it just does not compare the alternatives with the criterias based on the rating or subjective ranks, but it helps to derive the ranks of various alternatives based on the monetary and non-monetary values that each criteria has, plus it assigns the minimum benchmark to each criteria, additionally helps to assign weights to criteria. This is a very complex tool that can be used to make decisions based on various and diverse(Monetary and non-monetary) criterias.

I would like to analyze the SMART tool and AHP tool further, which i will try to do in the future blogs. The main benefit of the smart tool that I think is that it takes into account the benefit of the decision and the cost of that decision on the same hand. So while taking the decision we just look at the benefits first and then look at the cost. I think this is a major missing factor from the PPT that we are going to present tomorrow. But another justification is that we have given higher weights to other factors as well such as capacity. So the decision that I feel is a holistic one which includes all the criterias and takes into consideration all the factors. The decision is taken on the basis of various criterias and assigning the subjective weights.

Therefore, what I have learnt is that even while using these tools the decision taken is very subjective because the rating and the weight assigned is based on the judgement of the decision maker. Also there is a need to have a data-driven approach in the organisation to apply these tools well. I am excited to attend the module tomorrow, learn more about the tools and how to make the decisions. These are more analytical decisions which require in-depth tools.

Saurabh Kukreja : 29 Apr 2019 00:31 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem

MEASURING ORGANISATIONAL CAPABILITY

I am in a very interesting phase of my research. it is more about measuring the organisational capability. This is a very important aspect as well. Once you know what are the problems in the informal manufacturing sector then only you know what you have to do. Establishing this problem gives a clear understanding of the loopholes that need to be filled in. The route that I am taking to understand where this organisation stands is measuring its capabilities. Once you know what are the required capabilities of organisations working in the global value chain then the vision of SSIs will be better defined. The challenge is to research about the required capabilities. I found some literature talking about capabilities and that gives a holistic view of the things. These informal SSIs are working in a very traditional way and are using some really primite methods of working. This makes it tough for them to collaborate with the global companies as they don't have the required capabilities to work in partnership with them. I came across a UCMCCM capability tool which benchmarks an organisational capability against the best practise in the UK. It is exciting stuff at the first sight where you know where your organisation has to be and getting a feedback on the areas where it is lacking. But only after using the tool I realized that the informal SSIs are far from reaching anywhere near the best practice. This tool gives a problem of plenty, to select from various parameters to improve the capability. But I am happy to have this problem. This very next step I think should be is to make a set of right measures on the basis of which I can judge capability of these organisations. One possibility is to measure the capabilities of the best shoe manufacturing business in India against the UCMCCM capability tool. But this puts another question in place. Is there any other organisation in manufacturing sector in India that performs better than the best shoe manufacturing organisation(Relaxo). For instance, Relaxo uses wholesalers to distribute the goods and that might not be the best practice. Then the whole point of benchmarking Relaxo and showing it as best practice in India can be a bit confusing and that might question the whole concept of benchmarking. Esentially my aim should be to identify those capabilities that can act as the right capabilities for the informal SSIs. There are a couple of view points that I can think of.

Firstly, I can think of setting up the guidelines for the excellent organisations. And focus my research and capability development on that model. Because using UCMCCM as the only capability criteria can leave the organisation with a lot of things to do and actually it can confuse them. So first of all I need to focus what are the capabilities that are particularly necessary in order to growth and development of these organisations. My second step stems out of the first. I can identify the capabilities and what they esentially mean in practice. For example, having a personal store rather than a wholesaler can be a sales capability that is relevant in practice. This is something which is not shown in the model but can act as a very important capability. So taking such a practical approach to capability building can also be very useful where you define practices as capabilities. I am looking forward to make a model for it and setting the right mesaures on the basis of which the informal SSIs can be measured.

Saurabh Kukreja : 11 Apr 2019 19:03 |  Comments (0) |  Close comments |  Report a problem