Running Head: DECISION-MAKING MODELS
My Experience with Decision-Making Models
Angela Lester
University of Phoenix
Figure 1.
In today’s society, everybody makes decisions. It's a natural part of life and most of the time, we don't even think about the process. In an organization, decisions are made at every level. The level at which the decision is made can also determine the complexity of the decision in relation to the input of data and output of information.
Additionally, history clearly shows the decision-maker who best analyzes, decides, and controls the pace of interaction with an opponent will prevail, whether that opponent is an unthinking force of nature or a thinking human. To represent the functions performed during decision-making, researchers have traditionally used a process model similar to the OODA Loop (Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act). This model (Figure 1) represents decision making as a series of steps or stages (Flin, Salas, Strub, Martin, 2001).
In essence, some decisions are very structured while others are primarily unstructured. For example, I may wake up in the morning and make the structured, routine decision to get out of bed. Then I am forced to make the unstructured decision of what clothes to wear that day (for some of us this may be an incredibly routine decision). Structured decisions involve definite pr ...